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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 







STARTING OUT. 



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Through Battle to Victory. 

4 



Talks to Young People 

ON 

Life and Success. 



BY 

REV. HENRY TUCKLEY, 

Author of "L,ife's Golden Morning." 



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CINCINNATI: CRANSTON & STOWE. 
NEW YORK : HUNT & EATON. 



-SsssH 



The Lii>* ^ 

OF CONGKESd 

WASHINGTON 



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Copyright by 
CRANSTON & STOWE, 

1890. 



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IDEIIDICATIOilNC. 



As a small token of my personal regard for him, and in grateful 

appreciation of his kindness to ministers of the gospel, 

his generous benefactions to children, his labors in 

behalf of young people, and the devoted 

service he has given for many years to the cause of wholesome 

literature, I dedicate this book on 

XtfB ant) J§UXCB88 
to my honored friend, 

A Christian gentleman whose best title of nobility is in his 

own name and character, and who, at the same time 

that he has been solving the problem of success 

in a satisfactory manner in his own life, has 

also, in the various ways indicated, done what he could to 

make many other lives successful. 

H. T. 






•""N •T - "T^* 



INTRODUCTION 



O make palpable to young people the im- 
^-D portant fact that life is a battle which can 
only be won by the brave and true ; to 
show, in the most forcible manner, that to 
those who exhibit these qualities victory is 
a foregone conclusion, but that the wicked, the 
worldly, the cowardly, and the indifferent can 
expect nothing save defeat ; and to demonstrate, 
at the same time, that this fact of life being a 
battle, is one which, far from arousing fear or 
causing discouragement, should inspire us with 
enthusiasm and incite to the noblest efforts, — 
such are the purposes of this book. It is in- 
tended, in a word, to link arms with the young 
people's societies of the day, and to help these 
in preparing the rising generation for valiant 
service in the grand army of the future. 

The military idea has been adopted, not only 

5 



6 INTRODUCTION. 

because it correctly expresses trie facts in the 
case, but for the additional reason that, to young 
people, it is always pleasing, and is very likely 
to prove impressive and convincing. One fea- 
ture, which is sure to be welcome, is quite un- 
usual in books of this kind. We refer to the 
notes, which, on almost every page, indicate so 
plainly what topic is under treatment. Another 
interesting feature is the illustrations. These 
are sure to be enjoyed ; and when it has been 
observed that the renowned men whose portraits 
are given are held up as models, not in any 
general sense, excepting in a few instances, but 
only in the particular things to which distinct 
reference is made, we can safely leave the pic- 
torial parts of the book to tell their own story 
and to teach their own stimulating lessons. 

"Forward March" is similar in both style 
and aim to our other work, " Life's Golden 
Morning." The latter, however, deals chiefly 
with manners and conduct ; whereas this, though 
no less practical than that, treats more fully of 
character and destiny, and shows in clearer and 
stronger light what is necessary to success in 
the highest meaning of that term. 



INTRODUCTION, J 

The author flatters himself that there is 

nothing in the book contrary to either divine 

truth or human reason. Yet it was not written 

for theologians nor for profound philosophers. 

It was written for young people, our aim having 

been to adapt it in all respects to the tastes and 

needs of that interesting class. If these shall be 

attracted to it, and if, in reading what has been 

written, they shall be led to better views of life 

and duty, we shall have gained our object, and 

shall be deeply thankful. 

THE AUTHOR. 



CONTENTS 



CHOOSING SIDES. 

INTERESTING Situation of an Ancient People — What it 
means to live — The Period of Moral Helplessness — 
Human Incapacity covered by Divine Mercy — Starting 
out for Ourselves — The Choosing and Formative Pe- 
riod — Self-made Men not Exceptional— Does Oppor- 
tunity make the Man ? — The Chisel of Destiny — The 
Greatest Thing on Earth— Why Life is a Battle — Moral 
Neutrality not Possible — Choice limited to Two Sides — 
How Two Great Armies are recruited — Life's Danger- 
ous Undertow — Importance of turning the Switch — 
Drifting toward the Rapids — Necessity of a Fixed and 
Worthy Aim — The Proper Time to Enlist — Importance 
of Right Beginnings — Of Two Courses, Which ? — God's 
Service a Reasonable One— Urgent Call to Decision — 
An Ultimatum from Head-quarters —True Motives of a 
Worthy Life, Pages 17-38 

II. 

THE FLAG WE FOLLOW. 



An Ancient Battle-hymn — A Sweet Singer and his Chief 
Musician — How Battle-hymns stimulate to Valor — 
Times which try the Soul— Victory only by doing 

9 



IO CONTENTS. 

Duty — Use of Flags at Sea — Some who carry Satan's 
Flag — Two Flags which never harmonize — The Elo- 
quence of Flags— Principles represented by the Flag 
we follow — A Flag which stands for Honesty, Purity, 
and Benevolence — The Standard of Moral Progress — 
The American Flag in 1812 — How the Flag we follow 
has extended its Conquests — A Flag with a Mighty Fu- 
ture — Destiny of the Dark Continent — The American 
Flag in Siberia — What it means to have Heaven's Flag 
Above us — His Satanic Majesty and the Czar of Russia — 
A Flag which symbolizes Hope and Help for All — What 
we owe to the Flag we follow — "Don't let that Flag 
go down " — One who died for the Flag — Advantages of 
keeping our Colors flying, PAGES 39-62 

III. 

THE FOES WE FIGHT. 

The Great Opportunity of a Great Man— How Opposition 
should incite to Heroism — The Circus Maximus and its 
Lessons — What it means to be at Life's Threshold — 
Prizes offered in the Arena of Existence — Reputation 
Determined by Character — How to win a Commanding 
Position — A Grand Prize which is Possible to All — The 
Great Prize at the End — Victory only through Battle — 
Our Mightiest Foe, and his Methods of Assault — Lesson 
from the Great Bonaparte — A Fighting Chance to win — 
Why General Lee failed — How Industry discounts Ge- 
nius — The Most Common Vice, What is it? — That Insid- 
ious Foe, Dishonesty — The True Way to Get on in 
Life — Awful Consequences of Impurity — Tenacity of 
Youthful Habits — Appalling Effects of Intemperance — 
Pledging the Modern Hannibal s — How to achieve the 
Most Brilliant Conquests— Bright Side of the Battle 
of Life, Pages 63-87 



CONTENTS. 1 1 

IV. 

THE ALLIES WHO HELP US. 

An Inspiring Panorama — Anxious Question of a Trembling 
Youth — Wise Words from the Lips of Experience — First 
View of Life, What it reveals — An Eye-opening Prayer — 
Allies in Life's Battle whom we can not see — Lesson 
from the Sad Fate of Maximilian— The Mighty Gov- 
ernment that backs us — Help from Angels, May we 
expect this? — The Great Question, How?— Celestial 
Forces on Terrestrial Battle-fields— Angelic Help not 
Adequate to Human Need — Our Chief Reliance in Life's 
Battle — Advantages of having God with us— Compara- 
tive Estimate of those for and against us — A Winning 
Battle-cry — What is Necessary to put God on our Side — 
The Great Strategic Point in Life's Battle— A Memo- 
rable Campaign, What it teaches — After Conversion, 
What? — Earthly Alliances which offer Help — Why we 
need the Church — Sterling Advice of an Old Sea-cap- 
tain — Lesson from the Johnstown Flood — Another 
View of Life's Golden Morning — Helps to Success in 
Life, Pages 89-112 

v. 
THE CAPTAIN WHO LEADS US. 

The Divine Purpose in Human Life— Earthly Honors in 
Contrast with Heavenly — The Chief End of Existence — 
Our Imperative Need of Jesus Christ — Prizes we may 
win by our Own Unaided Efforts — Success which means 
only Failure — Two Notable Lives, and what they teach — 
True Success only by Self-denial — What it means to 
enter the Army — Shouldering the Musket from Prin- 
ciple — First Requirement of the Captain who leads us — 



12 CONTENTS. 

Three Inspiring Examples — Noble Resolve of a Burmese 
Boatman — What our Captain has done for us — The 
Great Blot on Bonaparte's Escutcheon — How Battles 
were directed in the Late War — Peter the Great and 
Christ the Greatest — Advantage of Rising from the 
Ranks — Qualities of a Perfect Commander — Alexander 
and Hannibal — A Leader who is always in Front — 
"There's the Duke, God bless him"— Of Two Com- 
manders, which shall have us ? — How an Ancient City 
was saved — Contingency in which Life must be a 
Failure, Pages i 13-138 

VI. 

THE WEAPONS OF OUR WARFARE. 

NECESSITY of a Good Equipment — Dreadful Foes whom we 
can not see — A call to Manfulness — That Noble Drum- 
mer-boy — Life's Emergencies, How to meet them — De- 
cisive Moments in Great Battles — .Why Some Days are 
Evil Days — How Evil Days may be made Good — 
Snatching Honor from the Jaws of Danger — Putting on 
the Armor — What our Helmet signifies — Valor in Battle, 
How to secure it — Stirring Address of a Wise General 
to his Troops— A Sure Antidote to Discouragement — 
Evil Thoughts, Two Methods of treating them— The 
Breastplate of Righteousness — Guarding the Steps, 
Why and How? — The Uses of Gospel Foot-gear— An 
Interesting Paradox — Moral Security, How obtained — 
The Shield we are to carry — How to resist Tempta- 
tion — The Best Weapon in the Universe — Significant 
Conduct of Two English Rulers — Necessity of Watch- 
fulness and Prayer — How a Memorable Battle was 
won — What it means to be fully equipped for Life's 
Warfare, Pages 139-170 



CONTENTS. 13 

VII. 

QUALITIES OF A GOOD SOLDIER. 

Advice of a Veteran to Young Recruits— The Universal De- 
sire of Young People—" Plenty of Room at the Top" — 
The Highest Form of Excellence — Striking Contrast 
between Two Kinds of Fame — Paramount Requirement 
of the Good Soldier— The Divine Methods of Recruit- 
ing — Hardships and Sacrifices of Army Life — Sublime 
Instances of Youthful Heroism — Life's Greatest Battle- 
field, Where is it? — Appeal of Pizarro to the Castil- 
ians — Facts to be remembered when Choice is exer- 
cised — The Soldier's First Lesson — Consequences of 
Failure in Life's Battle — The Only Path leading to Hap- 
piness — Nature and Effects of True Courage — The 
Quality we most need — Analysis of the Courage of Lu- 
ther—The Martyrs and the Great Martyr— How to fit 
Ourselves for Hazardous Duties — Heroism on the Field 
of Battle — An Old Adage improved upon — Why Some 
People get on in the World — The Sad Consequences 
of not having Grit and Grip — The Strong Pull not 
Enough — Characteristic Remark of Abraham Lincoln — 
Great Lesson taught by a Great General, . Pages 171-203 

VIII. 

THE VICTORY. 

After-thoughts of the Glorified Christ— Small Things 
compared to Greater — Looking Backward — A Golden 
Thread of Encouragement — Duty and Destiny Linking 
Hands — A Mechanical Certainty, and what it suggests— 
The Trick of an Ancient General— An Augur we can 
trust— Battle-fields that are Sacred— The Greatest Con- 
flicts of History— Christ's Triumph the Pledge and 



14 CONTENTS. 

Model of Ours— The "Big I" and "Little You" People- 
When the "Big I" is Proper— Discriminating Testi- 
mony of a Dying Minister — The Scene when the King 
comes in — Looking Forward — Pictures of Heaven by 
an Bye-witness — Significance of Some Striking Meta- 
phors — The Glory which excelleth — Thoughts which 
should thrill us — After Crosses, the Crown — Things 
worth Remembering — At Life's Threshold again — 
The Divine Visitor — How to treat Him — Last Words. 
Pages, 205-239 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Page. 

Starting Out, Frontispiece. 

The Two Ways, . Facing page 16 

Joshua, . . .^ . . 21 

Taking Good Aim, 26 

Steering by the Chart, Facing page 32 

The Flag we Follow, Facing page 38 

The Sign of Triumph, 49 

A Brave Standard-bearer, „ 55 

Julius Caesar, -58 

In the Circus Maximus, Facing page 62 

Advancing to Battle, 70 

Napoleon Bonaparte, . . . 75 

Serpent in the Glass, 83 

Hannibal's Vow, 85 

Sunrise at Dothan, Facing page 88 

The Outlook, 94 

John Wesley, 102 

Oliver Cromwell, 104 

General Grant, 107 

Perfect through Suffering, Facing page 112 

The Unnoticed Visitor, 118 

David Livingstone, 126 

At the Front, 129 

J 5 



1 6 ILLUSTRATIONS. 

Page. 

The Iron Duke, 136 

The BatTeE of Hastings, Facing page 138 

A Nobee Drummer-boy, 145 

The Triae, 148 

The Triumph, 149 

Greek Warrior, 158 

Sword and Bibee, 165 

Queen Victoria, 167 

Ready for Action, 169 

A Knight of the Cross, Facing page 170 

Pizarro, . 184 

A Wreck, 189 

Luther at Fourteen, 194 

Abraham Lincoen, 201 

The Vision of Constantine, Facing page 204 

The Soedier at Home, 226 

The Ark, 228 

Looking Forward, 232 









i i i 



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:-►♦< 



I. 

Ghoosing SiQes, 



17 



CONTENTS 



INTERESTING Situation of an Ancient People— 
What it means to live — The Period of Moral Help- 
lessness — Human Incapacity covered by Divine 
Mercy — Starting Out for Ourselves— The Choosing 
and Formative Period — Self-made Men not Excep- 
tional — Does Opportunity make the Man? — The 
Chisel of Destiny — The Greatest Thing on Earth — 
Why Life is a Battle — Moral Neutrality not possi- 
ble-tChoice limited to Two Sides — How Two Great 
Armies are recruited — Life's Dangerous Undertow — 
Importance of turning the Switch — Drifting toward 
the Rapids — Necessity of a Fixed and Worthy Aim— - 
The Proper Time to Enlist — Importance of Right 
Beginnings— Of Two Courses, Which?— God's Service 
a Reasonable One— Urgent Call to Decision— An 
Ultimatum from Head-quarters— True Motives of a 
Worthy Life. 



I. 



CHOOSING SIDES. 




| HE last shall be first. We draw our 
opening appeal from Joshua's final 
words to the Israelites. Like 
Washington, at a similar crisis, the 
chief concern of this ancient com- 
mander was that his countrymen 
should ever remember and ever illustrate the 
great truth that the only possible road to 
national exaltation was the broad highway of 
national righteousness. 

These Israelites had been settled recently in 
a new land. Egypt, with its awful bondage, 
was behind them. Safely delivered were they 
also from the perils and the tedious marches of 
the wilderness. What had been so long only a 
promise, and sometimes, to their clouded vision, 

19 



20 FORWARD MARCH. 

only a dim promise, was now a reality. Hope 
deferred had found its fruition. They were in 
Canaan. 

Occupancy of this new land entailed new re- 
sponsibilities, and of these their departing leader 
interesting sit- does not fail to remind them. 

uation of an An- 
cient People. Much had he to say, and every 

word, coming from such a source, must have 
been to these people like an apple of gold in a 
picture of silver. Summarized, however, the 
duty he urged was that, simply, of prompt and 
firm decision in favor of God — an intelligent and 
whole-hearted choice of the service of God — the 
precise duty which, beyond all others and be- 
fore all others, presses upon all young people. 

That which makes your duty the same as 
theirs, is the fact that your situation is similar, 
what it Means Had tne Y entered Canaan but re- 
10 Llve " cently? So have you come re- 

cently within the sphere of moral obligation. 
You have been living for years ; but now, as 
never before, do you begin to realize what it means 
to live. The tutelage and discipline of youth 
have led you at length to that momentous period 
in which responsibility presses, and opportunity 



CHOOSING SIDES. 



21 



invites, and temptations assail, just as these 
Israelites, after their train- 
ing in the Wilderness, were 
settled at length as a sep- 
arate and responsible peo- 
ple in the land of Canaan. 
Upon yon, therefore, as 
upon them, does there rest 
now, with extraordinary 
force, the great duty of re- 
ligious decision, that to 
which Joshua summons us 
when he says : " Choose you 
this day whom ye will 
serve." 

In the earlier part of 
our existence the task of 

The Period ot choosing does 
Moral Helpless- 
ness, not trouble 

us much. At that period 

others choose for us. They 

choose where we shall 

dwell, what we shall learn, 

what we shall be, what we Joshua. 

shall do. And most fortunate is it that such an 




22 FORWARD MARCH. 

* 
arrangement exists; for of all animals man is 

the most helpless at his birth and for a number 
of years afterwards. Not only are we physically 
helpless at this period, but we are morally so as 
well. Not morally dead, for all children have 
some virtuous inclinations and some power of 
conscience. We affirm simply that we are mor- 
ally incapable, during this period, of making a 
firm and intelligent choice of the course in life 
which would be best for us. 

Happily, too, has our moral, no less tlian our 

physical, helplessness been provided for in the 

Human inca- divine economy. Our fellow-beings 

pacity Covered by 

Divine Mercy. choose for us in other matters, 
and, within this realm, until we are able to 
choose for ourselves, God chooses for us. He 
chooses, too, that we shall be his children, with 
his redemptive love as our portion while we live, 
and his own presence and glory if we die. 

Later, however, as the will strengthens, as 
conscience develops, as the judgment becomes 
starting out for enlightened, and as the moral per- 
ourseives. ceptions widen in their scope, our 

Heavenly Father severs these moral leading- 
strings, and sends us adrift, like an outgoing. 



CHOOSING SIDES. 23 

ship, which is towed by a tug while it is in the 
shallows near the shore, but which, when the 
shoals have been passed and the great stretch of 
old ocean rises to view, is left to carve out its 
own course, and to make what progress it can 
by the use of its own powers of locomotion. 

At this momentous crisis are all those whom 
we distinctively call young people. As regards 
both your temporal and vour spirit- The choosing 

and Formative 

ual destiny, this, pre-eminently, is Period. 
your choosing period. Be assured, too, that 
within both realms your own individual choice 
is that which will determine what you are to be. 
We hear men spoken of occasionally as 
44 self-made men," and such cases are emphasized 
as though they were exceptional. Self . made Men 
Let me tell you, however, that, in not Exce P tional - 
a very important sense, all men and all women 
are self-made. Parents may help to make us 
by the educational advantages they provide. 
But who could hold that education makes the 
man, in presence of the fact that so many who 
are educated fail in life, while some who are 
not educated, or are only partially educated, 
win for themselves a magnificent success. 



24 FORWARD MARCH. 

Something may also be done toward making 

us by the openings which a kind Providence 

Does opportu- affords. But, spite of the fact that 

nity Make the 

Man? some one has had the temerity to 

say it, who can seriously believe that " oppor- 
tunity makes the man," when we all know 
that many who are born to great opportunities 
barter their birthright for a mess of pottage, 
and that many others, who have only the ad- 
vantages which they carve out for themselves by 
hard blows, reach the highest places of useful- 
ness and honor? 

Nor is the question of what we shall become 
determined by our mental endowments ; for, as 
the slow tortoise, by keeping at it, will often 
outstrip the fleet-footed hare, so, in many cases, 
do those of moderate intellectual powers outstrip 
the more gifted in the race of life. 

No, my young friends, none of these make the 
man, though each, if properly used, should con- 
The chisel of tribute to this process. But that 
Destiny. which really makes us — the sharp- 

edged and all-potent chisel by which every man, 
out of the block of marble that is placed before 
him, brings forth the angel or the demon — is 



CHOOSING SIDES. 25 

that man's own will. Greater this than all learn- 
ing ; greater than all the advantages of birth ; 
mightier than brains ; more potent, in one sense, 
than even the grace of God ; for divine grace is 
never forced upon us, but is bestowed only 
where the will is used in seeking it. In other 
words, that which determines character and fixes 
destiny, is this stupendous prerogative of per- 
sonal choice. 

You talk about the power of kings ; but let 
me tell you that the most absolute monarch on 
this earth is the king within your The Greatest 
own breasts. Not only does the Thing on Earth - 
Almighty himself respect the sovereignty of the 
will, but he has so arranged matters that all his 
creatures are compelled to defer to it. Were it 
possible, our parents, in most cases, would see 
that we turned out well. But in all the father's 
counsels that ever fell in golden nuggets from 
devoted lips, and in all the mother's tears that 
ever dampened a sleepless pillow or fell in 
scalding drops upon the cold cheek of youthful 
obduracy, there is not force enough to save a 
single soul from death, nor to turn the steps of 
one perverse mortal into the way of honor and 

3 



26 



FOR WARD MARCH. 



renown. Thus we are all self-made men. at 
last, and that which makes us what we are is 







Taking Good Aim. 



this sublime, this inviolable prerogative of per- 
sonal choice. To every one of us in early life 
comes the appeal to choose. 



CHOOSING SIDES. 27 

We present life to you as a battle, and the 
figure is aptly used. It is a battle; God has 
made it so. The mixture of good Why Life is a 
and evil in our own natures makes Battle - 
life a battle. The clash of opposing forces all 
about us makes it a battle. The din of conflict 
fills this whole universe. All intelligences are 
engaged. The Almighty wars against Satan, 
and Satan wars against God. On opposite sides 
are massed the good and bad angels. The great 
principle of wrong constantly antagonizes the 
mightier principle of right. 

These aspects of the conflict we do not see ; 
they are spiritual and invisible. But enough of 
this tug of war we do see to make Moral Neutral . 
the battle intensely real, and the ity not Possible - 
necessity for taking part in it both clear and 
urgent. As regards the fact last named, it is as 
when, a generation ago, the crisis of war sent a 
line of division through this great Republic. 
Everybody then took sides. The heart in every 
case went one way or the other. Those who 
seemed to be neutral were not so in reality, and 
some of these had a harder time, with less to 
compensate them, than those who stood up 



2 8 FOR WARD MARCH. 

boldly for their convictions. So in the battle 
of life. Our first duty, upon entering the arena, 
is to determine which side we will espouse. 

That each must serve on one side or the other, 

is beyond question. Not only must the heart in- 

choice Limited cline toward one or other of these 

to Two Sides. twQ sides> but tQ Qne or the Qther 

will the service of the life be given. Here the an- 
alogy between the war for the Union and the con- 
flict of which we are now speaking is lost. In our 
great National conflict thousands gave sympathy 
who did not don the uniform. But here, in every 
case, is service rendered; necessarily so, for this 
conflict is not confined to a few localities ; it is 
raging constantly all about us, and, whether he 
will or not, every man has a part in it. 

Not only must we all take sides in this battle, 

but ail who would be upon the right side 

how Two Great must enlist. The government of 

Armies are Re- 
cruited, heaven, let us remind you, never 

resorts to the draft. It holds out inducements ; 

it offers large bounty ; it promises ample rations, 

splendid pay, a complete equipment, and it 

sends everywhere its recruiting officers, whose 

special business is to persuade men to enter the 



CHOOSING SIDES. 29 

ranks. But beyond this God does not go. All 
his soldiers must be volunteers. He never has 
recourse to the draft. 

With Satan, however, it is different. The draft 
is his normal process, and that upon which he 
mainly relies to keep up his forces. Only the few, 
only the most depraved and hardened, enter Sa- 
tan's service from choice, the simple reason why 
he has so large a following being that all who re- 
fuse to enter God's army ally themselves with him 
of necessity ; for so tightly in all directions are 
the lines of moral combat drawn, that he who 
is not with God is against him, and that he who 
enlists not of his own free will under the banner 
of moral progress, places himself, by his inde- 
cision, on the other side in this great conflict. 

The undertow of life is toward evil and ruin. 
To lose the good and secure the evil, you need 
only neglect to choose the good. Life , s Danger . 
The sad wail of all lost souls, and ous Undertow - 
of all ruined lives is like the never-ceasing 
lament of that man who lost his reason because 
one night, as the express came dashing along, 
he neglected to turn the switch, and thus al- 
lowed the train, with its living freight, to dash 



30 FOR WARD MARCH. 

forward to an awful destruction, his bitter depre- 
cation, until lie died, being, "0 that I had! 
that I had !" Yes, it would indeed have been 
better had he done his duty, inestimably better; 
but he had not, and hence the frightful conse- 
quences. 

So, my young friends, does everything, in 

your case, depend upon whether or not, at the 

The importance right time, you turn, or fail to 

of Turning the 

Switch. turn, the switch of that sovereign 

will with which God has endowed you ; for to 
turn this from its inclination toward evil, so 
that it shall open the track of righteousness to 
your steps, will mean salvation for both worlds ; 
whereas to neglect to turn it will be, without 
the need of any further choice on your part, to 
leave the express train of destiny with no alter- 
native but to dash forward on the road in which 
all danger lies, and the end of which is present 
and eternal destruction. 

We repeat, therefore, with added emphasis, 
that the undertow of life is toward evil. To go 
up stream, one must pull vigorously ; to go down 
stream, all you need do is just fold your arms 
and let the boat take her own course. 



CHOOSING SIDES. 31 

A number of gentlemen started on a certain 
occasion to cross the broad river running past 
Thun, in Switzerland, and one of Drifting Toward 
them relates that in the middle of the Rapids ' 
the stream they became involved in a contro- 
versy as to the point toward which they should 
make on the opposite shore, and this discussion, 
he says, continued so long that, before they knew 
of their danger, the undertow had carried them 
so far toward the rapids that it was only by the 
most Herculean efforts that they w 7 ere able to 
bring the boat back, and thus save their lives. 

And what a warning does this afford against 
the insidious undertow which ever surges 'neath 
the placid stream of life ! O young people, let us 
plead with you to regard this warning! Instead 
of parleying or playing or trifling in any w T ay, 
after your boat has been fairly Necessity of a 

Fixed and Worthy 

launched upon this stream, the Aim. 
true course is, to pull, without delay and without 
cessation, for the shore on the opposite side. In 
other words, have an object in life. Fix your 
gaze upon a point of destination ; let it be a 
worthy one — no other than the arms of Christ 
and the service of Almighty God ; and then, 



32 FORWARD MARCH. 

your point of landing chosen, bend all your en- 
ergies to the task of reaching it ; for be assured 
that, unless you do this, the current of the stream 
will bear you upon its treacherous bosom to 
places below, where the landing will be more 
difficult, and may possibly carry you into the 
rapids, where hope of being able to disembark 
will be still further removed, and, these passed, 
may finally plunge you over the cataract, and 
thus add one more to the millions of misguided 
souls who, because they did not choose to serve 
God, have been drafted into Satan's service, and ; 
because they would not come to Christ for life, 
have been carried forward, of necessity, by the 
force of their own passions in the way which 
leads to death. 

From these observations we shall surely be 
convinced, not only that it is our duty to enlist, 

TheProperTime but that {t is 0Ur dut Y t0 d ° this 

to Enlist. immediately. This was the chief 

point in Joshua's appeal to the Israelites. Fur- 
ther delay, he felt, would be at once unreasonable, 
ungrateful, unwise, and unsafe. They could 
not doubt that it was their duty to serve the 
Ivord, nor could they question in which direction 







STEERING BY THE CHART. 



32 



CHOOSING SIDES. 33 

their own interests lay. The sad consequences 
of departing from the living God they knew 
well, from both observation and experience; and 
equally were they apprised of the blessedness 
which must result from being true to him. 
Obedient service, they were fully aware, meant 
life and prosperity ; it meant national greatness 
and perpetuity. And just as fully did they know 
that disobedience meant national weakness, dis- 
comfiture, disintegration, and, if long persisted 
in, national destruction. They did not need 
any more light, nor could they reasonably ask 
for any additional discipline. They knew the 
way perfectly. Why should they hesitate an- 
other moment to walk in it? It was Joshua's 
conviction that these people were without ex- 
cuse, not only for any further rebellion, but for 
any additional delay. Hence his fervent appeal 
to them to choose at once whom they would serve. 
He must have felt also that an immediate 
decision was called for by the peculiar situation 
in which they were placed. Brought Importance of 
by the good hand of God into a new Ri & htB ^ inni ^ s - 
country, and newly invested as they were with 
national responsibility, what more fitting than 



34 FORWARD MARCH. 

that they should at once acknowledge God as 
their king, and begin immediately to serve him? 
An important epoch was this ; it was the be- 
ginning of a new era, and Joshua, well knowing 
how much the beginning has to do with the 
continuance and the ending, did all he could, 
in his closing address, to prevail upon these Is- 
raelites to begin their new life in that new coun- 
try by choosing to serve — to fully serve and to 
constantly serve — him whose right hand and 
outstretched arm had delivered them from the 
bondage of Egypt. These were the grounds of 
Joshua's urgency in the appeal he made to the 
Jews, and upon similar grounds do we base the 
appeal we are making to these young people. 

Like the Israelites, you are just now in a new 
land. The novelty and the blessedness are 
of two courses, Y ours of having recently entered 
which ? ^ deeming realm of moral account- 

ability. Of all times, this is the time to begin 
a new life. Delay in serving God means the 
giving of your best powers and your best years 
to Satan's service. Moreover, if you do not en- 
list now, and do enlist later, you will have to 
change sides in life's conflict. But how much 



CHOOSING SIDES. 35 

better to begin right than to get right after- 
wards! How much nobler to serve God from 
the first, than to serve the world first, and then 
offer to the Almighty the mere remnants of a 
life wasted and dishonored by sin! 

Duty summons to the former of these courses. 
Remember, my young friends, that you are not 
your own, but that, by creative God , s Service a 
right and by redemptive purchase, Reasonable ° ne - 
you belong to God. Bear in mind, too, that the 
service he asks from you is a reasonable service; 
not impossibilities, but only the best you can 
do ; not sacrifices without recompense, but a 
fullness of reward which shall more than make 
up for everything you lose, and shall fully repay 
you for any exertion you may make. 

And every consideration which renders it 
necessary or desirable that you should serve God 
at any time, makes it both necessary Urgent Call to 
and desirable that you should enlist Decisioft - 
in his service without delay ; for if you are his, 
it is beyond a question that you owe him, not a 
part of your life only, but the whole of it. And 
if, again, God's service be, as you admit, a 
reasonable service, then, we ask, how can any 



36 FORWARD MARCH. 

reasonable being justify himself in holding aloof 
from it for even a day? 

Thus we draw a circle about you, and we ask 

you to choose whom you will serve ere you step 

An ultimatum beyond the limits of that circle. We 

from Head-quar- 
ters, come to you, as the ambassador of 

the Roman Senate went to Antiochus, in Egypt, 
with urgent commands to him to withdraw his 
armies from that country ; and as he did, so do we ; 
that is, we draw, as has been said, an imaginary 
circle about you, and call upon you to decide, 
here and now, whom you will serve. Possibly 
it would be at once truer and more impressive 
to say that the hand of God has drawn such a 
circle about you, and that from him really comes 
this appeal for an immediate decision. This 
circle is the mystic line inclosing that most mo- 
mentous period of life between accountability 
and manhood. Some of you are standing in 
that charmed circle at this moment. God has 
placed you there. And now — your past lives 
filled with tokens of his goodness, and your fu- 
ture career brightend by promises of his con- 
tinued favor — he stands before you, as Joshua 
stood before Israel, and the appeal he makes, 



CHOOSING SIDES. 37 

the command he gives, is, "Choose you this 
day whom ye will serve." 

We do not say that those who fail to choose 
in youth will never choose ; nor do we affirm 

that by not Choosing at OnCe yOU The True Mo- 
tives of a Worthy 

of necessity run any great risk. Life. 
Our hope is that you may have many opportu- 
nities of salvation. Probably you will, though, 
on the other hand, is the possibility that you 
may not. Still, we do not desire, and do not 
expect, to frighten you into decision. Our ap- 
peal is not to your fears, but to motives and im- 
pulses that are praiseworthy and noble. 

Young people pride themselves in their sense 
of honor. O that this delicate sense of what is 
honorable and right might impel you all to do 
that which is right toward the God who made 
you and the Christ by whom you have been re- 
deemed! 

Young people are ambitious ; they have ex- 
alted notions of what they would like to accom- 
plish in life. Come, then, my young friends, 
and find the full realization of your highest 
and grandest dreams in this army of the L,ord 
of hosts. 



38 FORWARD MARCH. 

Young people are valiant ; the glow of en- 
thusiasm is upon them, and the tide of life flows 
buoyantly through their veins. " I write unto 
you, young men, because ye are strong," John 
said ; and for the same reason do we write ; and 
what we ask of you is that you make a conse- 
cration of this youthful strength, with all the 
valor and all the enthusiasm attending it, to the 
Being from whom it came, that gracious Being 
whose heart pulsates in tender love toward all 
his creatures — particularly toward all young 
people — and all of whose limitless resources are 
pledged in this battle of life to the overthrow 
of the powers of evil, and to the final vindica- 
tion and triumph of every soldier who fights 
under his banner. 




*«^*V! 



THE FLAG WE FOLLOW 



3S 



:►♦««= 



II. 

The Flag We Follow. 



39 



CONTENTS. 



AN Ancient Battle-hymn— A Sweet Singer and his 
Chief Musician — How Battle-hymns stimulate 
to Valor — Times which try the Soul — Victory only 
by doing Duty— Use of Flags at Sea — Some who carry 
Satan's Flag — Two Flags which never harmonize — 
The Eloquence of Flags — Principles represented by 
the Flag we follow— A Flag which stands for Hon- 
esty, Purity, and Benevolence— The Standard of 
Moral Progress — The American Flag in 1812 — How 
the Flag we follow has extended its Conquests — A 
Flag with a Mighty Future — Destiny of the Dark 
Continent — The American Flag in Siberia — What it 
means to have Heaven's Flag above us— His Satanic 
Majesty and the Czar of Russia — A Flag which sym- 
bolizes Hope and Help for All— What we owe to the 
Flag we follow — "Do n't let that Flag go down" — 
One who died for the Flag — Advantages of reeping 
our Colors Flying. 
40 




II. 



THE FLAG WE FOLLOW. 




HERE is an intimate relation be- 
tween battle-flags and battle-hymns. 
It is from the former that the latter 
derive their inspiration. Often, too, 
the magic power of these hymns 
is concentrated in some distinct allusion to 
what the flag represents. This was the case 
with that battle-hymn of Israel which is pre- 
served in the twentieth Psalm, one of the verses 
of which reads : " We will rejoice in thy salva- 
tion, and in the name of our God will we set up 
our banners." 

In all probability this was Israel's favorite 
battle-hymn. It was penned by An Ancient Bat . 
their warrior king, the valiant tle - h y mn - 

David, and its lofty sentiments do equal credit 

4 41 



42 FORWARD MARCH. 

to his intelligence, his daring, and his sublime 
faith. What the tune was we do not know. 
We can imagine, however, that the music would 
be pitched, like the words, in the highest key of 
genius, and would scale, as they did, the loftiest 
summits of patriotic fervor. 

Assurance of this is afforded by the title to 

the Psalm, which intimates not only that it was 

a sweet singer a Psalm of David, but that it was 

and his Chief Mu- 
sician, dedicated by David to the chief 

musician; accompanied, too, we may well sup- 
pose, with a command from its royal author that 
the chief musician do his best to provide a score 
that would be worthy of it. 

What a history must this battle-hymn have 
had ! How often had its notes echoed and re- 
echoed through the spacious courts of Israel's 
magnificent temple! It was used in the temple 
service responsively. The priests would first 
render a verse, and then from ten thousand voices, 
blended in thundering chorus, the answer would 
be given in the next verse. But to hear this hymn 
at its best, we must wait until war impends and 
the martial spirit is abroad; or, better still, until 
Israel's army is about to charge upon her ene- 



THE FLAG WE FOLLOW. 43 

mies. Then let the soldiers sing it for us as 
they rush into battle. 

Imagine the effect of such a hymn. If the 
shrill music of the Marsellaise has such power 
over the soldiers of France, and if how Battle- 

hymns Stimulate 

"The Watch on the Rhine," has to vaior. 
so often sent the stolid Germans to victory, 
what wonder that, going into battle with the 
music of this Psalm in their souls, the armies 
of Israel were so often victorious ? The fact is, 
indeed, that to Israel's hosts, when this battle- 
hymn expressed their real sentiments, victory 
was a foregone conclusion, and defeat a contin- 
gency not to be dreamed of; for this hymn made 
the conflict upon which they entered no longer 
a battle of men against men simply, but a 
battle of God against men. Of this they were 
aware; and knowing that their victory was so 
fully assured, what more natural or proper 
than that, as the Psalmist causes them to do in 
the words we have quoted, they should rejoice 
in it beforehand, and especially so since he sup- 
plied in the same sentence a fitting recognition 
of the Being by whose gracious power the vic- 
tory was to be won? 



44 FORWARD MARCH. 

And now look at the application. Had they 
battles to fight? So have you. Your whole 

Times which lif e will be a battle. The struggle 
against evil will be a never-ceasing 
one; and, in addition to this, there will be 
times when special conflict will impend — times 
which will try your souls as Hezekiah's was 
tried when the king of Assyria threatened him 
with destruction — conflicts which will shape 
character and fix destiny, as the character and 
destiny of Jacob were fixed by that long, lone, 
and finally victorious struggle with the angel. 
But let not our young friends be alarmed at 
this prospect ; for what though life be a battle, 
if victory is assured beforehand ? What though, 
as Israel was, you are beset by enemies, when 
you also have Israel's God to help and de- 
liver you? 

Do not forget, however, that in your case, 
as in theirs, deliverance is conditioned upon 

victory only by conduct. The salvation itself is 

Doing Duty. frQm Qq ^ ^ ^ means ^^ 

make it available inhere in your own hearts. 
If, therefore, you would exult in the victory 
which is promised, be sure that you perform the 




THE FLAG WE FOLLOW. 45 

duty imposed ; be sure, that is, that at the very 
outset of life, as well as in preparing for every 
subsequent conflict, you set up your banners in 
the name of God. 

Here, then, is the flag we follow — a flag 
raised in the name of God ; a flag which, as we lift 
it up, and as the breezes of heaven 
unfold it to the gaze of mankind, 
shall unmistakably proclaim, first, 
that we are upon God's side; and, 
secondly, that God is upon our side. 

The first thing is to raise this flag. The first 
duty is to choose sides. Don't imagine that you 
can be neutral. Out at sea, vessels recognize one 
another by the flags they display. Use of Flags at 
There is a language of flags. By Sea * 
these signs they tell each other who they are, 
whither they are bound, what cargo they carry, 
what weather they have met, and how it fares 
with those on board. Sometimes, though, a 
vessel will come within hailing distance of an- 
other without speaking. Not a solitary flag is 
raised; and, of course, when this occurs, the in- 
formation the flags would so easily have given 
is left to conjecture. 



46 FORWARD MARCH. 

But human beings are different from ships. 

From the mast-head of every bark navigating 

some who the ocean of human life some flag 

Carry the Devil's 

Flag. may be seen flying ; and that flag 

proclaims who we are, whose allegiance we own, 
and whither we are bound. Which flag, we 
wonder, are these young people carrying ? If it 
be the flag of worldliness, or the flag of indif- 
ference, or the flag of profanity, or the flag of 
intemperance, or the flag of dishonesty, or the 
flag of indecision, then it is the devil's flag; and 
the banner floating over you proclaims you to 
belong to him, and to be sailing under his guid- 
ance, through hidden rocks of danger, toward 
the port of final destruction. But we beg you 
to strike this flag, and to run up in its place 
the ensign of truth and righteousness. 

Sometimes, in naval battles, when one ship 
conquers another, the flag of the conqueror is 

Two nags hoisted above that of the van- 
winch Never 
Harmonize. quished, and the two float from the 

same mast-head together. But we do not like 

this arrangement. It is too suggestive of the 

position of compromise which some men and 

women are trying to maintain in the battle of 



THE FLAG WE FOLLOW. 47 

life. Rest assured, though, that to serve God 
and mammon at one and the same time is not 
possible. Rest assured, my young friends, that 
God's flag and the devil's flag never float to- 
gether over the same individual, even though 
there may be an effort to give God's flag the 
pre-eminence. Hence we do not ask for a choice 
at your hands which shall merely put God's 
flag above that of Satan; but what we do ask. 
what we insist upon, and that which God im- 
peratively demands, is that you take the old 
flag down and burn it, and that then, in token 
of a complete surrender, you run up in its place 
this new flag, which shall proclaim unmis- 
takably that you have entered the Lord's serv- 
ice, and are voyaging now, under his skillful 
pilotage, not toward danger, but toward secu- 
rity ; not to the port of final destruction, but to 
the safe harbor of eternal blessedness. 

Every flag has its significance, and every 
flag representing a nation or a cause makes 
some kind of an appeal. Allusion The Eloquence 
has been made to the language of of Flags - 
flags. Think of the eloquence of these silent 
symbols, the power they have to stir the feelings, 



48 FORWARD MARCH. 

to set the soul on fire, and to waken into 
quenchless ardor the sleeping energies of the 
life! There have been times when the greatest 
orators, in appearing before an audience, have 
not needed to speak; when words would have 
been too barren and beggarly ; when all they have 
done, or have needed to do, was to wave before 
the people some flag that was near by, the tu- 
mult following this act being such as old Boreas 
creates when, by his mighty winds, he lashes 
the ocean into a fury, and sweeps everything 
before him. There are times, too, when nothing 
so surely as a flag will awaken the softer feel- 
ings which, like swollen rain-clouds, vent them- 
selves in tears. A tattered battle-flag, for in- 
stance, — what veteran and what patriot can look 
upon such an emblem, remembering what it 
means, without yielding to it an involuntary 
tribute of emotion ? 

Speaking, however, of the power which flags 
have to send a thrill through human hearts, and 
to throw a charm over human lives, what shall 
be said of this flag, this banner which is set up 
in the name of God, this blood-stained banner 
of the cross? 



THE FLAG WE FOLLOW. 



49 



Consider, first, the principles it represents. 
They are principles of righteousness; for wher- 
ever this flag receives due rever- Principles Rep- 
resented by the 

ence men will love justice and nag we Follow. 
practice truth. -" God and my right," is the motto 
on England's flag. Sometimes, though, that 
nation seeks more than her right. There are 
occasions when 
she infringes 
upon the rights 
of others. But 
this flag of ours 
means "God and 
my right" in the 
truest and broad- 
est sense ; for it 
means not only 
that we shall do 
right so far as our own interests are concerned, 
but that we shall respect and promote the rights 
and interests of our fellow-creatures. 

This flag stands for honesty. Let it be 
everywhere regarded, and we should need no 
longer either police-officers or prisons. It means 
purity. Let it float over our cities and exercise 




50 FORWARD MARCH. 

its virtuous sway over our lives, and personal 

chastity would everywhere prevail, doing away 

a Flag which at once with divorce courts and 

Stands for Hon- ..-i ,1 j r • i • i 1 i 

esty, Purity, and with the dens or vice which abound 
Benevolence. amon gst us. It means benevo- 
lence. Measure for us the length and breadth 
of God's benevolence, and we will then com- 
pute for you the length and the breadth, the 
strength and the beauty of those principles of 
benevolence symbolized by the banner which is 
lifted up in his name. Tell us what he is to 
his creatures, and we will tell you from that 
what this flag signifies to them. 

It means liberty and temperance. Let us 

lift it up as individuals, and it will typify a 

The nag of redeemed manhood, a character 

Moral Progress. ma(k beautiful with the beauty of 

holiness, and a life which shall exhale goodness 
as naturally as the rose emits fragrance. Run 
up this flag over your dwelling, and it will 
mean that the earthly home has become typical 
of the heavenly. Hoist it from your city build- 
ings, and it will proclaim that city officials have 
ceased to seek primarily their own good, and 
are seeking first the good of the community. 



THE FLAG WE FOLLOW. 51 

Float it out upon the breezes from our State 
capitols, and let it open its white folds to the 
kisses of the sunbeams as they fall upon that 
great dome at Washington, and it will mean 
that the States which compose this Union shall 
be as sisterly and loving as the Three Graces, 
and our Nation the purest, the noblest, and the 
most enduring that God's blessed sun ever 
looked down upon. Such are some of the prin- 
ciples represented by this flag, such some of the 
gracious results that would ensue to human be- 
ings and to human society if all should follow 
this flag. 

Look, too, at the halo of glory which encir- 
cles this emblem. It could not be other than 
a glorious flag, owing to the grandeur and 
glory of the principles it represents. It is glo- 
rious, too, because of the triumphs The Amencan 
it has won. Like the flag of our Flag ln l812 ' 
own Republic, only in a higher and fuller sense, 
it has constantly increased in glory. The time 
was when our National ensign was not much es- 
teemed ; when, in fact, some nations held it in 
contempt. It is said that the British newspapers 
in 1 81 2 expressed amazement and disgust, 



52 FORWARD MARCH. 

because, as they put it, the time-honored flag of 
England had been disgraced by " a piece of 
striped bunting flying at the mast-head of a few 
fir-built frigates manned by a handful of out- 
laws." Nor is this surprising, for in that year, 
we are told, two hundred and fifty British ships, 
carrying three thousand sailors, and cargoes of 
immense value, had been captured by American 
cruisers. No wonder the English were dis- 
gusted, But that piece of despised bunting, 
backed by the arms and hearts of free American 
citizens, did its business sufficiently well even at 
that time, though what it meant then, and what 
it did then, were but the faintest prophecies of 
the strength and glory for which it stands to-day. 
So, and much more so, with this flag of the 
lowly Nazarene. The powers of the world held 
how the nag it in contempt at first. It was in 

we Follow has .-* i • r j_ • i 

Extended its Con- their view only a piece of striped 
quests. bunting, with a few outlaws be- 

hind it. But it answered all purposes even 
then ; for at the very time when it was most 
despised, it began the winning of its greatest 
victories. While men were still spitting upon 
it, it was hoisted over the palace of the Caesars ; 



THE FLAG WE FOLLOW. 53 

and so, ever since, has it gone forward from vic- 
tory unto victory, until now there is not a civ- 
ilized power in the world that does not bow to 
it, and scarcely a foot of land on the earth where 
it may not be freely lifted up ; or, recurring to our 
original figure, not a ship navigating the great 
ocean of modern progress which does not give 
this gospel ship the right of way, and which does 
not hasten to salute the glorious flag it carries. 
Think, too, of the future that is before this 
flag. Think of the mighty plans of conquest for 
which it stands. How insignifi- A Flag with a 
cant, in comparison to these, are Mlghty Future - 
the petty ambitions represented by other flags ! 
The flag of these United States, they say, is 
destined to float finally over a united American 
continent. But God claims all the continents, 
and some day he will unquestionably get them. 
Russia is jealously watched by her European 
neighbors, because of the designs she has upon 
the Black Sea and upon Constantinople. But 
God has designs upon all the seas and upon all 
the cities and empires. A point of attraction 
for. all the nations just now is the Dark Con- 
tinent. It appears to be the destiny of that 



54 FORWARD MARCH. 

land to be divided piecemeal among the Euro- 
pean powers. Germany, England, France, Bel- 
gium, Portugal, all want a slice of it, with 
others yet to hear from. 

Let me tell you, though, that Africa, like the 

other continents of this globe, has been pre- 

Destiny of the empted by the Government of 

Dark Continent. heaven< Let me remind VOU that 

amongst the other flags planted in her fertile 
soil, is this flag of the Nazarene, and that, if 
prophecy be true and the current of events be 
a reliable criterion, this flag is destined to ex- 
tend its triumphs there until Ethiopia shall 
stretch out her hands to God, and every corner 
of that Dark Continent be filled with the glory 
of his salvation. 

This, my young friends, is the flag we fol- 
low — the best, the grandest flag that ever spread 
its folds to the free breezes of the sky — a flag 
wdiich stands not only for universal conquest, 
but for universal and eternal dominion, accord- 
ing to the principles of righteousness. 

As a still further inducement to follow this 
flag, think now of the power it symbolizes and 
the ample protection it insures. 



THE FLAG WE FOLLOW. 



55 



Once enlist under this 
standard, and all the 
moral power of the Gov- 

The American eminent of 
Flag in Siberia. God ^ be _ 

hind you. How much it 
means sometimes to be a 
citizen of the United 
States ! We have just 
had an illustration of this. 
A subject of the czar of 
Russia became a natural- 
ized citizen of this coun- 
try, and then, returning 
to his own country on a 
visit, he was seized and 
banished to Siberia, upon 
the pretext that he had 
fled to America to escape 
military service. Think 
of that man, exiled in 
that barbarous land, and 
with all the power of 
that great Government 
employed to keep him there ! He is there, 




56 FORWARD MARCH. 

however, no longer. He is now back again in 
the land of his adoption. What accomplished 
all this ? do you ask. Why, the American flag 
accomplished it by the power it has and the de- 
termination it shows to defend the rights and to 
guard the liberties of all American citizens. 

But if it means something, and means so 

much, to be a citizen of this Government, 

what it Means and to have the American flag be- 

io have Heavens 

Flag Behind us. hind us, how much more must it 
mean to be a citizen of heaven's Government, 
and to have our moral and spiritual rights 
linked to the power, and bound up in the honor, 
of the flag which floats from the battlements of 
the skies ! 

In one respect there is a striking similarity 

between the Government of the czar of Russia 

His Satanic and that control over mankind 

Majesty and the 

czar of Russia, which Satan is seeking. We refer, 
of course, to the purpose of the latter to force as 
many as he possibly can into active service in 
his army. Not only will he use all his power 
to prevent you from enlisting in God's army 
in the first instance, but he will do all he can, 
in case you do enlist, to take you captive after- 



THE FLAG WE FOLLOW 57 

wards. Let me tell you, too, that Siberia, with 
all its horrors, is an Eden of blessedness com- 
pared to the prison in which Satan immures his 
captives. But let me tell you this as well, that, 
malignant as are his designs, stupendous as is 
his power, and innumerable as are his emis- 
saries, you still, if true to your colors as a soldier 
of King Jesus, need have no more fear of being 
harmed by him than though he had no existence. 
But suppose, in an evil moment, we yield to 
Satan, what then? some one is asking. Why, 
then, do not think of despairing, a nag which 

Symbolizes Hope 

but remember that this flag which and Help for ah. 
we offer, if you shall but grasp it in the firm 
hand of faith, will work deliverance for you even 
in that case; for as there was no prison in Si- 
beria strong enough, nor sufficiently remote, to 
conceal an American citizen from the vigilance 
of the American Government, or to detain him 
against the power of the American flag, so is 
there no corner in all the desert wastes of sin 
where any true penitent can be concealed from 
the Divine eye, or held for a moment in Satan's 
bondage against the power of divine grace. 

And now, what does not such a flag deserve 



58 



FOR WARD MARCH. 



from us? What of consecration, what of sacri- 
fice, what of affection, what of devotion, what 
what we owe of service and fealty, can we rea- 

to the Flag we 

Fciiow. sonably withhold in presence of a 

standard so pure, so noble, so mighty, so di- 
vine? When Julius Caesar, having crossed the 
Rubicon, in his inarch toward Rome, was in- 
formed that the 
senators had fled 
without striking a 
blow, he exclaimed 
in derision, as well 
he might : " If they 
will not fight for 
such a city, what 
city will they fight 

Julius C^sar. for?" So, of these 

young people, might it well be said, though we 
do not say it in derision, but in compassion and 
with tender yearning, if they will not fight in 
such a cause, and under such a flag as that 
which is here presented, in what cause will they 
fight, and to what flag, actual or conceivable, 
can we have any hope of gaining their allegiance ? 
But many are enlisted under this banner 




THE FLAG WE FOLLOW. 59 

and they feel, doubtless, that to follow such a 
flag is an unspeakable honor. Some probably 
have the spirit of that wounded . . Don . t let that 
soldier, to whom his country's flag FlaggoDown '' 
was everything, and his own sufferings and sac- 
rifices nothing. "Never mind me, Captain," he 
said, "but don't let that flag go down." He 
had been wounded ; he must soon bleed to death. 
His captain, who was near, saw his danger, and 
would fain have helped him. But the brave 
soldier begged him to push on. His own life 
was nothing, if but his country might be saved. 
"Never mind me, Captain," he said, " but do n't 
let that flag go down." O, for such a spirit in 
those Christian warriors who fight under the 
banner of King Immanuel, whose cause is the 
cause of God, whose country is the New Jeru- 
salem, and the success of whose arms will mean 
blessing, not to one nation alone, but to all the 
nations of the earth ! If for other flags men will 
suffer so much, what suffering should we be- 
grudge in behalf of this flag? If other flags 
appeal with so much force to the affections of 
those who follow them, how may not God's sol- 
diers be expected to love his banner? 



60 FORWARD MARCH. 

Think of that Austrian officer, found by the 

victorious Prussians, dying in a ditch. It is said 

one who Died that tne Prussians who found him 

for the Flag. ^ ^ stQry ^^ uncovered 

heads. He was flat upon his back; Help might 
have saved him, but he begged them to let him 
alone. So fervently did he beseech them to let 
him die just as he was, that they regarded his 
wishes in the matter. Passing that way again, 
and perceiving that he was dead, they began to 
prepare him for burial, and as they lifted him 
for this purpose, they saw at once why it was 
he had begged them so earnestly to let him die 
just where he was; for beneath him, hidden from 
the view of its enemies, had lain a tattered 
battle-flag, which evidently had been dearer to 
him than his own life. O, noble spirit! No 
wonder those Prussians admired it ; no .wonder 
they looked upon this scene with uncovered 
heads. Nor are we surprised that they should 
show their sense of such devotion by wrap- 
ping his body in this cherished emblem, and by 
laying him away for his long and well-earned 
rest with the flag he loved so well serving as 
his shroud. 



THE FLAG WE FOLLOW. 6 1 

And now, my young friends, we would have 
you love in the same way, and defend with the 
same zeal, and guard with the same devotion, 
this better flag which you are following. Be 
sure, first, that you enlist under this banner ; 
then be sure that you remain faithful. Be true 
to your convictions, maintain a bold front, keep 
your colors flying. Let all who Advantages of 

Keeping our 

know you, know on which side you colors Flying, 
are, and let them always know that you are on 
God's side. To have no flag up, will be to in- 
vite assault from pirates, whereas the sight of 
your flag will protect you from such assaults ; 
just as it was, a few weeks ago, with one of our 
own ships. Being followed by a craft which 
seemed bent on mischief, the captain, as a meas- 
ure ol safety, floated the American flag from the 
mast-head, the result being that the vessel which 
had seemed to threaten harm, soon found that 
it had urgent business in another direction. 
And so, rest assured, will Satan take to flight 
when he sees our flag hoisted. The better 
course, however, is not to hoist this flag in 
emergencies only, but to keep it flying all 
the time. 



62 FORWARD MARCH. 

It has been touchingly observed that when 
Commodore Smith heard that the Congress, 
commanded by his son, had struck her colors, 
his simple observation was: "Then Joe is dead." 
And Joe was dead, and that remark was a noble 
father's best eulogy upon a faithful son. Such 
a spirit of heroism, such a well-established rep- 
utation for fidelity, God grant that you may 
have ! Then, your banners set up in God's 
name, and your life devoted to his cause, it 
shall indeed become your privilege to rejoice 
continually in God's salvation ; for in that case 
he himself shall go before you, and his power 
and grace ever enable you to triumph. 



M 



U! 



PI I 



P^iny 

■ uaJglll h 




IN THU CIRCUS MAXIM US 



:►♦< 



III. 

The Foes We Fight. 



63 



CONTENTS. 



THE Great Opportunity of a Great Man— How Op- 
position SHOULD INCITE TO HEROISM— THE ClRCUS 

Maximus and its Lessons— What it means to be at 
Life's Threshold — Prizes offered in the Arena of 
Existence — Reputation determined by Character — 
How to win a Commanding Position — A Grand Prize 
which is Possible to Ate— The Great Prize at the 
End— Victory only through Battle — Our Mightiest 
Foe, and his Methods of Assault— Lesson from the 
Great Bonaparte— A Fighting Chance to win — Why 
General Lee failed — How Industry discounts Ge- 
nius—The Most Common Vice, What is it?— That In- 
sidious Foe, Dishonesty — The True Way to get on in 
Life — Awful Consequences of Impurity— Tenacity of 
Youthful Habits— Appalling Effects of Intemper- 
ance—Pledging the Modern Hannibals — How to 
achieve the Most Brilliant Conquests — Bright Side 
of the Battle of Life. 
64 



%^ 







hi 



THE FOES WE FIGHT. 




.0 be assailed by numerous foes, and 
to win their victory at last only by 
the most determined and persistent 
fighting, has been the invariable lot of 
earnest and virtuous souls since the 
world began. This was Paul's situation when, 
from Ephesus, he wrote to his friends in Cor- 
inth, saying: "A great door and effectual is 
opened to me, and there are many adversaries.'" 
Before him was an open door, and beyond that 
door was a broad sphere oi Christian activity 
Not only a chance to work, but the certainty, if 
he should work, that unusual results would follow 
his labors ; for this door, he tells us, was at once a 
a great and an effectual door. Thus the situation 

seemed enviable in the extreme, and the pros- 

6 65 



66 FORWARD MARCH. 

pect all that could be desired. But with so much 
to encourage,, was there nothing to dishearten ? 
We do not wonder at Paul's purpose to 
tarry indefinitely at Ephesus when we take 
only this view of his position. Perhaps, though, 
The Great Op- there is another view. Possibly 

portunxty of a 

Great Man. there are facts which, had they 

been fully realized, might have inclined the 
apostle to leave Ephesus. There was, indeed, 
another side to the situation, and a side, too, in 
the survey of which a less heroic soul than 
Paul's would unquestionably have been intimi- 
dated. There was opportunity; but there was 
opposition as well. There was an open door ; 
but investing this door, to dispute his entrance 
therein, were many adversaries. And there 
were adversaries beyond the door, who would 
oppose his every effort, and contest desperately 
every foot of the progress he sought to make after 
the door had been passed. Bear in mind, too, 
that Paul knew this, and that in the passage we 
have quoted he makes distinct allusion to it ; 
and yet observe, at the same time, in what spirit 
and with what terms he alludes to it. 

Notice the conjunction employed. He does 



THE FOES WE FIGHT. 6j 

not say, "A great door and effectual is opened to 
me," but, "there are many adversaries," as though 
the presence of these adversaries how opposition 

should Incite to 

made duty uncertain and success Heroism. 
dubious. What he does say, is, "A great door 
and effectual is opened to me, and there are 
many adversaries," as though these adversaries, 
far from furnishing a reason why he should leave 
his post in Ephesus, afforded the strongest rea- 
son why he should cling to it, making his pres- 
ence and his continued labors in that city not 
only the more needful, so far as the cause of 
God was concerned, but the more desirable and 
the more honorable from the stand-point of his 
own personal interests. 

Such was Paul's view of the situation and 
prospects at Ephesus, and such is the view of 
life we would hold up before these young people. 
An open door means access to opportunities, a 
chance to do something and to be something ; 
and the opening of a great door signifies that 
the chance presented is one of unusual magnitude 
and importance. Such is the chance you have. 

This figure ot an open door beset by adver- 
saries, is supposed to have been drawn by Paul 



68 FORWARD MARCH. 

from the opening of the great doors of the Cir- 
cus Maximus, and from the opportunity thus 
The circus Max- afforded to win honor in the 

imus and its Les- 
sons, chariot-races. Assuming the cor- 
rectness of this view, how strikingly suggestive 
does the passage become of the position occu- 
pied by these young people ! Just now, my 
young friends, are there opened before your 
steps the great doors, not of the Circus Maxi- 
mus, but of the mightier arena of human life 
We congratulate you, both upon the position 
you occupy and upon the prospects which 
are before you. To be at life's threshold, what 
a privilege! Would that you fully appreciated 
this privilege, and had a proper sense, also 
of the responsibilities attending it! But many, 
we fear, are deficient at this point, and hence 
our present effort to instruct them respecting it. 
As a means to this end, we would flash upon 
these opening doors of existence the lurid light 
what it Means of ten thousand hopeless death- 

to be at Life's 

Threshold. beds. We would summon before 

you from the other side of those doors the ghosts 
of ten thousand wasted opportunities. We would 
also take you in thought over some of the battle- 



THE FOES WE FIGHT. 69 

field* lying beyond, and let you listen to the 
bitter wails of those who have been worsted in 
life's struggle, and at the same time we would 
remind you how many there have been who, be- 
cause they entered life's battle with a just ap- 
preciation of what it meant, have carved out for 
themselves a magnificent triumph, winning the 
plaudits at once of earthly spectators and of 
those who watch this conflict from the battle- 
ments of the skies. These things we would do, 
if we could, to make you realize, as many, we 
fear, do not at present, how transcendently im- 
portant is this open door of life, and how very 
necessary it is to your future success that you 
enter this door with proper feelings and with 
worthy purposes. 

Look, first, at some of the prizes offered in 
life's arena. Some win the inestimable prize 
of a good character. They pre- Prizes offered 

in the Arena of 

serve their integrity. They walk Existence, 
ever in that brightest of earthly pathways, the 
path made sunny by an approving conscience. 
They keep on good terms with themselves, 
which, next to being in friendly relations with 
God, is the greatest good any of us could desire, 



70 



FORWARD MARCH. 



and that which most surely conduces to hap- 
piness. 

A good character is almost always attended 
by a good name ; for the rule is that the man 
who does right, stands right before his fellow- 
men. He may 
be evil spoken 
of at times ; 
but how is it 
possible for 
the breath of 
calumny to 
taint such a 
man, or for 
the mud of 
slander per- 
manently to 
defile him? As 
soon might 
the baying of midnight curs disturb the serenity 
or dim the luster of the white-faced moon. Yes, 
Reputation De- there are multitudes, thank God, 

termined by Char- 
acter who win in life the priceless guer- 
don of a good name, — that which is better than 
great riches ; that which inspires confidence, and 




THE FOES WE FIGHT. 7 1 

constrains affection, and commands preferment, 
and makes the memory, when we are gone, 
sweet and grateful as the pouring forth of fra- 
grant ointment. 

Some, moreover, win positions of promi- 
nence and commanding influence. And let us 
emphasize the fact that these high how to win a 

Commanding Po- 

places are won. They are not in- sition. 
herited, excepting in the very rarest instances; 
nor do they come at the caprice of good luck. 
Life is not a lottery, though many delude them- 
selves with the notion that it is. Every man in 
this country is the architect of his own fortune, 
the contriver and fashioner of his own fame. 
Prizes are these things, and if some receive them 
and others do not, the reason is usually, if not 
invariably, that the fortunate ones so demean 
themselves in life's conflict as to win these 
prizes, while the others, largely through their 
own faults and deficiencies, become losers in 
this fierce strife. 

A prize which, fortunately, may be secured 
by every one of us, is the blessedness of doing 
good. Though we may not all become distin- 
guished, we can all be useful. To do good in 



72 FORWARD MARCH. 

the world we need not be richly endowed in in- 
tellect, nor is it necessary for us to attain to ex- 
a Grand Prize alted position. The stars of night 

Which is Possible 

to aii. have their uses, equally necessary 

and blessed with those served by the full-orbed 
king of day ; and so may the smallest and least 
gifted life, no less surely than the most brilliant 
and distinguished, shed radiance, according to 
its ability, upon this darkened world, and so 
fulfill its mission as to be as much missed when 
it has gone out, as the stars are when impene- 
trable clouds enshroud them. 

Nor can we afford, at this point, to leave 
out of the account the life that is beyond. If 
The Great Prize *t be a great and effectual door 
at the End. w hich opens to you at • the begin- 

ning, what shall be said of that opening at the 
end, that door of exit from life's arena to' which 
John refers when he says, "I looked, and be- 
hold, a door was opened in heaven?" Not to 
all will that door open, but to those who are 
victorious it will, beyond a question. Thus 
there is held out to youthful ambition, 

An honored life, a peaceful end, 
And heaven to crown it all. 



THE FOES WE FIGHT. 73 

And who will not join us in the wish that 
this prize, no less than the others mentioned, 
may be the final and eternal inheritance of these 
young people, who are objects of such profound 
interest to us because they are sitting now 
within the portals of these sublime possibilities? 

Now, as to the warfare we are to wage. 

The kingdom of heaven sufFereth violence. 
We shall certainly have to fight if we would 
win that prize; and no less certain victory only 
is it that fighting will be necessary through Battle> 
if we are to gain any of the other prizes held 
out to us. At the door of every Eden of earthly 
blessedness stands an armed sentinel, surely as 
an angel with a flaming sword was posted by 
Almighty God at the gate of the first Eden. 
Ere Jonathan and his armor-bearer could scale 
the garrison of the Philistines, they must pass 
between two rocks, — Bozez, which meant dirty, 
and Seneh, which meant thorny ; and just so are 
there thorny and dangerous passways to be trav- 
ersed ere these young people can take any of 
the garrisons of honor and glory which lie be- 
fore them. 

When the doors of the Circus Maximus were 

7 



74 FOR WARD MARCH. 

thrown open, not only was there a sharp contest 
at the entrance, bnt every step of the course was 
sharply contested ; and precisely similar will 
you find it to be in this mightier contest in the 
arena of life. A great and effectual door opened 
to Paul, and standing guard over this door, to 
dispute his entrance therein, were many adver- 
saries. So in your case. 

The adversaries in this battle will be at once 

numerous and desperate. At their head will be 

our Mightiest the prince of fallen spirits. You 

Foe, and his Meth- 
ods of Assault. will not see this leader of the op- 
posing forces, but you will feel his influence, 
and, unless you are extremely careful, will fall 
a prey to his strategy. His usual course is to 
take advantage of our natural passions and in- 
clinations. As some one has forcibly put it, 
this great adversary, like a smith at his forge, 
blows with the breath of temptation upon the 
coals of human desire, until they are sufficiently 
heated to melt the purposes of the will, and 
then, our will having yielded, he bends and 
fashions us as he pleases. 

This struggle against evil never ceases. It 
is a hand-to-hand encounter, and it is a battle 



THE FOES WE FIGHT. 



75 




Napoleon Bonaparte. 



to the death. When Napoleon had captured 
Saragossa he found, it is said, that the battle 
was renewed in every street, and was not finally 



76 FORWARD MARCH. 

won until the desperate defenders of that city 

had been met and defeated singly and individ- 

Lesson from the ually. So in this battle of life. 

Great Napoleon. p^ ^ ^^ must be carrie(L 

First, by the power of divine grace, ascendency 
must be given to virtue and right principles. 
First we must be converted. The door of life's 
opportunities before us, and many adversaries 
standing there to beat us back, our first duty is 
to put these adversaries to the sword; and the 
sword to employ in this holy assault is the 
sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. 
Then, the first battle won and an entrance 
effected, what then ? Why, then, my young 
our Fighting friends, far from having earned 

Chance to Win 

victories. the right to rest on your laurels, 

you have simply carved out for yourselves, by 
the grace of God, a fighting chance to win other 
victories; for then, as at Saragossa, will the 
battle be renewed in every street and the enemy 
assail you from every house-top, the price of 
your continued liberty being continued vigi- 
lance, and the good things of this world, equally 
with the better things of the other world, be- 
coming yours to possess and enjoy only when 



THE FOES WE FIGHT. jj 

you shall have deserved and conquered them by 
courageous and successful fighting. 

So much in general about the foes you have 
to fight. Now we enter into a few particulars 
which will prove, we trust, more practical and 
useful. To say that the battle of life will never 
cease, and that your chief foe will be Satan, is 
to afford little light and to hold out little encour- 
agement. Were that all we could say, we should 
leave you perplexed rather than instructed, and 
fearful instead of confident. Fortunately, how- 
ever, there are statements to be made which are 
more definite. Fortunately, we are not ignorant 
of Satan's devices. An inspired apostle declares 
that we are not, and he tells the truth ; for, in 
the first place, we have the Bible to instruct us, 
and, added to this, we have the teeming pages 
of human experience to draw upon. 

Let me remind you, my young friends, that 
though the battles to which you are advancing 
will be new to you, they are not new to mankind 
in the abstract; for beings just like yourselves 
have been fighting similar battles since the world 
began, one of the results being that we know 
thoroughly our enemy's plan of campaign. It 



7 8 FOR WARD MARCH. 

has been held, by one of his biographers, that 

the reason General Lee failed in his campaign in 

why General Pennsylvania and Maryland, was 

Lee Failed. ^^ by SQme acc jdent, hlS plans 

fell into the possession of the general opposing 
him. We do not know as to this ; but that the 
plans of the skillful general opposing us in this 
battle of life have fallen into our hands, is be- 
yond question. And hence the great practical 
advantage of looking over the field before you 
enter it, and of pausing while still on the out- 
side of the great door of life until there shall 
have passed before you, in panoramic view, the 
two sides of life, — the opportunities it affords, 
and the dangers it presents ; the prizes to be 
won, of which you have already been informed ; 
and the foes to be fought, particular information 
of whom it is our purpose to give you now. 

One of our foes is indolence. A battle is 

always a scene of activity ; and if life be a battle, 

how industry what save inglorious defeat can 

Discounts Genius. possibly awa j t those w \ lQ s [ t at 

ease ? Within both the spiritual and the secular 
realms the prizes and rewards fall alone to in- 
dustrious workers. Talk not of genius ; for often, 



THE FOES WE FIGHT. 79 

whilst genius pines in rags, mediocrity, backed 

by honest endeavor, clothes itself in purple, and 

carries everything before it. Really, as the best 

thinkers are agreed, there is no genius but hard 

work. Energetic toil, steadily continued, is 

the wonder-worker of this age. There is 

nothing like it, nothing that can take its place. 

Not only is it a sure road to success, but it is, 

generally speaking, the only road to that goal. 

To yield to indolence will render us an easy 

prey to other vices. Let the enemy find- us with 

our armor off and our weapons stacked, and we 

are his every time. And with all the more 

earnestness do we warn you against indolence, 

because we are sadly aware of the natural prone- 

ness of mankind to yield to this The Most com- 
mon Vice, What 

foe. That philosopher told the is it? 
truth who declared the most common vice of the 
human family to be sloth. We beg you, there- 
fore, to keep free, from this vice. Rouse your- 
self to effort. If you must fall in this battle, 
do n't let the enemy carry you off while you are 
asleep, but show the spirit of that noble soldier 
who insisted upon going to the front, even when 
he was too ill to go, and who, when admonished 



80 FORWARD MARCH. 

by his captain that he would die if he went, re- 
plied: "Let me go anyway; for if I must die, 
I want death to find me, not in the ambulance, 
but on the field." 

Another foe is dishonesty. One of the most 

insidious of our enemies is this, because he 

That insidious offers us a s ^rt road to comfort 

Foe, Dishonesty. and wealth> Re assured) however, 

that he lies in making these promises. He 
offers comfort, and gives wretchedness; and 
what though dishonest gains enrich us for a 
time in a worldly sense, think of the price we 
pay to get them, in the sacrifice of integrity, of 
a good conscience, and of all hope of those im- 
perishable riches that are laid up in heaven. 
Think, too, how uncertain is our hold upon 
such gains. Think how soon they may leave 
us in penury, rendered additionally odious by 
disgrace. Think, too, how often in these days, 
thanks to a quickened public conscience and a 
better administration of law, dishonesty finds 
its fitting recognition in the striped uniform of 
the penitentiary. 

In warning young people against this foe, 
we do not assume either that they are thieves 



THE FOES WE FIGHT. 8 1 

or are inclined to become such ; but that they 
will be tempted, as they advance in life, to do 
many things which will not bear the light of 
honest scrutiny, is inevitable, from the false 
ideas and principles which are The True Way 
abroad. It was remarked once by to get on in Life - 
a public speaker that the youth of his country 
reminded him of the three degrees of compari- 
son : First, they tried to get on ; then they tried to 
get honor ; then they tried to get honest. But 
let me admonish you, my young friends, that 
the true way to get on in life, and the only way 
to get honor in life, is to be honest from the 
first, and to remain so ever afterward, spite of 
all temptations to a contrary course. 

Another foe is impurity; and how many fall 
victims to it ! Its first approaches are in evil 

thoughts ; then evil feelings ; then, as Awfui conse- 
quences of Im- 
the Scripture says, " When lust hath purity. 

conceived, it bringeth forth sin ; and sin, when it 

is finished, bringeth forth death." Among all 

the commands given by the veteran Paul to the 

young soldier Timothy, the very greatest was 

that he gave when he said, " Keep thyself pure." 

Impurity will weaken the body; it will vitiate 



82 FORWARD MARCH. 

and enfeeble the mind ; it will blast the char- 
acter ; it will enslave the life ; it will damn the 
sonl ; it will make our memory a stench, and 
will start influences and passions in others which 
will remain to torture mankind, and to curse the 
world, even after our own career shall have 
found its fitting termination in rottenness and 
infamy. 

Why do we speak so strongly upon this sub- 
ject to the young, does some one ask? Because, 
Tenacity of m Y friends, youth, from the very 

Youthful Habits. vig()r of animal Hfe which it has> is 

peculiarly susceptible to temptation at this point ; 
because, moreover, youth is the time when habits 
are formed; and because, as the youth is, the 
future life is likely to be ; and because, further- 
more, if our young friends shall only succeed in 
keeping themselves pure in their early manhood, 
the victory gained is almost certain to be of 
life-long duration; whereas, should they fail to 
win this victory at that period, the probabilities 
are they will never win it. 

L,et me warn you also against another foe, 
the dread foe of intemperance. You want to be 
happy; but all happiness will disappear where 



THE FOBS WE FIGHT. 



83 



intemperance casts his burning glance, quickly 

as the dews of night before the fiery face of the 

summer sun. You want to be sue- A PP aiiing Ef- 
fects of Intemper- 

cessful, but success is no more pos- ance. 
sible under the dominion of drink than it would 
be possible for 
a man, single- 
handed, to re- 
sist successfully 
the might) 7 
sweep of Ni- 
agara. Visions 
of domestic 
bliss rise in en- 
trancing beauty 
over the land- 
scape of your 
lives ; but do- 
mestic happi- 



ness is condi- -^^^- -- -~*^^xovzwm.®> 
tioned upon purity and devotion ; and how can 
a man be pure while his system is inflamed by 
alcohol, or a woman find the proper incentives 
of womanly devotion when the man who swore 
to cherish her is a brute? 




84 FORWARD MARCH. 

Did you ever look upon a blighted house- 
hold ? Did you ever listen to the sad moanings 
of a broken heart? Did you ever gaze with 
tearful eyes upon the fragments of a life wrecked 
and ruined beyond all hope of redemption? 
Have you the least idea what such things mean ? 
Let me tell you, then, that more households 
have been blighted, more hearts broken, and 
more lives hopelessly wrecked by this foe of 
intemperance, than by all other evils together. 
Only think that to the fell demands of this in- 
satiate monster our own country pays an an- 
nual tribute of at least seventy thousand drunk- 
ards' graves! 

So, my young friends, let us swear you — as 

the father of Hannibal swore him in his youth 

Swearing the to eternal hatred of old Rome — so 

Modern Hanni- 

bais. let us swear you to eternal and 

unrelenting hostility at once against the drink- 
habit and the drink-traffic ; for be assured that 
the only safe attitude toward a foe whose ap- 
proaches are so insidious, and whose clutches 
are so deadly, is to give him no quarter or tol- 
eration at any point, but to plant yourselves in 
this warfare, and to ever remain upon the firm 



THE FOES WE FIGHT 



85 



ground — that twin-rock of sure resistance and in- 
violable security — abstinence for the individual 
and prohibition for the State. 

Another foe is indecision. Alexander, when 
asked how he had conquered the world, replied 
that he had done 
it by not delay- 
ing. O, young 
friends, the 
world is before 
you, and you 
may conquer it ! 
In a far better 
than the Alex- 
andrian sense 
mav vou con- 



quer the world. *&py^J 
Satan also is be- ■ 
fore vou, seek- 




de- 



Hannibal's Vow*. 



struction, and you may conquer him. Before you, 
too, lifting up a brazen and stubborn how to Achieve 

the Most Brilliant 

front, are a thousand other foes, and conquests. 
you may conquer every one of these. How shall 
you do this, does some one ask ? Why, as Alex- 



86 FORWARD MARCH. 

ander did, by not delaying ; by not delaying when 
the tide of opportunity comes in to take it at the 
flood; by not delaying, when the tempter appears, 
to say, " Get thee behind me, Satan;" by not de- 
laying to say No when the world invites to for- 
bidden pleasures, or when passion impels toward 
that which would be impure ; by not delaying, 
when God calls, to say, like Samuel, " Speak, 
Lord, for thy servant heareth ;" by not delaying, — 
that is the way to carve out a worthy career in 
life ; above all, by not delaying to give your 
hearts to God, and to fit yourselves for this great 
battle of life by putting on the whole armor 
of God. 

Before you is an open door. Beyond that 

door is the entire stretch of active life. What 

Bright side of would not some give could they 

the Battle of Life. p ut themselves back just where you 

are ? What is there that is worthy and grand 
which you may not realize, if you but set your- 
selves to seek it in the fear of God? And what 
though there are many adversaries? Far from 
disheartening you, this fact should nerve you to 
valor. A life with no hardships in it would ill 
befit such beings as we are. No struggle, no 



THE FOES WE FIGHT. 87 

development; no battle, no triumph; no contest, 
no prizes ; no cross, no crown ! 

Sitting, therefore, as we do, within the por- 
tals of a great and effectual door, and clearly 
perceiving, as we must, that this door leads to 
conflict, let us not repine over this fact; but 
rather let us rejoice in it, thanking God that we 
have the privilege at once of doing something 
and of daring something ; and while thus exult- 
ing in the opportunities God has given us, let us 
get ready to improve them, by lifting up a 
standard in his own name, and by seeking to 
realize, as we advance upon our foes, that the 
best of all is, God is with us. 




f" 






wm 



= s 



:►♦< 



IV. 

Thg Allies Who Hglp us. 



>4^E 



CONTENTS. 



AN Inspiring Panorama — Anxious Question of a 
Trembling Youth— Wise Words from the Lips 
of Experience — First View of Life— What it re- 
veals — An Eye-opening Prayer — Allies in Life's Bat- 
tle WHOM WE CAN NOT SEE— LESSON FROM THE SAD FaTE 

of Maximilian — The Mighty Government that Backs 
us — Help from Angels, may we expect this? — The 
Great Question, How ? — Celestial Forces on Terres- 
trial Battle-fields — Angelic Help not Adequate to 
Human Need — Our Chief Reliance in Life's Battle — 
Advantages of having God with us — Comparative Es- 
timate OF THOSE FOR AND AGAINST US — A WINNING BAT- 

tle-cry— What is necessary to put God on our Side— 
The Great Strategic Point in Life's Battle — A Mem- 
orable Campaign, what it teaches— After Conver- 
sion, what? — Earthly' Alliances which offer Help — 
Why we need the Church— Sterling Advice of an 
Old Sea-captain— Lesson from the Johnstown Flood — 
Another View of Life's Golden Morning — Helps to 
Success in Life. 
90 



IV. 



THE ALLIES WHO HELP US. 




is day-break on a mountain-top, and the 
early light, as it spreads over the face 
of nature, falls upon the up-turned and 
hopeful features of one who is in the early 
morning of existence. This youth is the serv- 
ant of the prophet Blisha, and one of the old 
commentators remarks that Klisha had taught 
him good habits by teaching him to rise early. 
The panorama of opening day is beautiful 
under any circumstances and to any eyes. To 
one, however, through whose veins An Inspiring 
courses the blood of youthful vigor, Panorama - 
and who is so very fortunate as to view it from 
a commanding eminence, the sight is more than 
beautiful, — it is magnificent, it is really in- 
spiring. Truly enviable, therefore, was the 

91 



92 FORWARD MARCH. 

position of this young man in one sense, and 
had it only been possible for him, while he 
looked at the glowing heavens, to shut out 
from his vision all sublunary sights and duties, 
he might have stood there enraptured and en- 
tranced until Aurora's train of light had drawn 
the full-orbed sun into view. 

Of necessity, though, he had looked down- 
ward, and in so doing had beheld a sight which 
Anxious Ques- sent a shudder through his frame; 

tion of a Trem- 
bling Youth. for at the foot of the mountain 

was a warlike host, massed there, as his fears 
correctly informed him, with special designs 
against himself and his master. We do not 
wonder that under these circumstances the 
young man trembled, nor that his agitated feel- 
ings found vent in the question, "Alas! my mas- 
ter, what shall we do?" 

But listen now to Elisha's answer. Older is 
the prophet than the servant and better in- 
formed. He has a longer stretch of experience 
wise words behind him. Not only has he seen 

from the Lips of 

Experience. the sun rise a larger number of 

times to gild the heavens with hope and glory, 
but more frequently to him, than to the boy 



THE ALLIES WHO HELP US. 93 

who waits upon him, has the new day brought 
new perils ; and invariably, too, in all these 
cases, have new dangers brought new opportu- 
nities for deliverance. His communings, more- 
over, were with the Divine. Behind the thin 
veil of nature he had found the God of nature. 
Such wonderful insight had he that he lived in 
two worlds at the same time, and saw as dis- 
tinctly what was transpiring in the invisible as in 
the visible. His servant had seen that morning 
the breaking light of onlv one dav ; he had beheld 
at once a material and a spiritual sunrise. The 
youth's vision had taken in but the one army— 
that which had been massed for their destruc- 
tion; the prophet's vision had compassed not 
only the earthly assailants, but the heavenly 
defenders, and the latter, presently, would his 
servant be made to see. Naturally, therefore, 
this man of God, far from being alarmed, is se- 
renely peaceful and sublimely confident ; his re- 
ply to the anxious question of his trembling 
companion being, "Fear not; for they that be 
with us are more than they that be with them." 
Similarly situated to this servant of Eli- 
sha are those whom we are now addressing. 



94 



FORWARD MARCH. 



In the early morning of existence are they. 

Their vigorous feet tread firmly the mountain 

First view of heights of youth. It is sunrise 

Life-What it Re- 

veais. with them. The horizon encom- 

passed by their vision is tinted with rays of 
promise and lit up by the soft light of hope. 
O blessed eminence, from which youthful eyes 

look out upon 
the opening 
prospect of life; 
and blessed sight 
the vision of day- 
break which is 
there afforded ! 
Equally, how- 
ever, with the 
servant of Eli- 
sha, do these 
young people see, from the heights on which they 
stand, not only that which gladdens and inspires, 
but that which, in one view, is calculated to de- 
press. They see enemies and the certainty of a 
great conflict before them ; and hence the pressing 
need of this message of comfort and assurance. 
44 Alas!" you ask, "how shall we do?" and our 




THE ALLIES WHO HELP US. 95 

reply is, as Elisha's was: "Fear not; for they 
that be with us are more than they that be with 
them." 

After addressing him in these words, Klisha 
prayed for this young man, his special suppli- 
cation being that God would open An Eye . opening 
his eyes, that he might see ; and Prayer - 
when his eyes were opened he did see, and what 
he saw was that, whereas he had supposed that 
Elisha and himself were alone, they were sur- 
rounded by all the forces of the skies, that the 
mountain on which they stood was full of horses 
and chariots of fire. 

Would to God, my young friends, that your 
eyes might be opened, that you too might see 

how full Of helpful forces is the Allies in Life's 

Battle whom we 

mountain on which you stand ! can not see. 
Some of these can be apprehended, of course, 
only by the eye of faith. But they are no less 
real on that account, nor need the fact of their 
being invisible lessen in the least their potency 
for good. To the soldier on the battle-field the 
greatest helps are not those which he sees, but 
those which he feels without seeing. The Gov- 
ernment, for instance, which sends him forth, — 



g6 FORWARD MARCH. 

he does not see this ; he is far removed from it. 
But he relies upon it for his pay, he looks to it 
for his rewards, and he implicitly believes that, 
so far as it can, it will send re-enforcements to 
his help. 

And let me tell you, my young friends, that 

there is a Government, and a mighty Govern- 

Lesson from the ment, at your back. Think not 

Sad Fate of Max- 
imilian, that the God who thrusts you into 

the battle will leave you to your own resources. 
If he did, he would be heartless beyond concep- 
tion — more deserving of the reprobation of man- 
kind than Napoleon III was held to be when 
he carried the hapless Maximilian to Mexico, 
and left him there, without protection, to the 
cruel mercies of a people whose throne he had 
usurped. This, however, God does not do. 
Far from it. He sends us to the battle-field at 
his own charges, and provides abundantly from 
his own resources for our vindication and tri- 
umph there. 

Yes, there is a Government behind us in this 
battle of life, one upon which we can implicitly 
rely, — grander, mightier, and trustier than the 
best human Government this earth has ever 



THE ALLIES WHO HELP US. 97 

known. We can not see it; bnt we are sure it 
exists, and that it helps us. Our consciousness 
attests this fact; for every faithful The Mighty 

Government that 

soldier in life's battle is supplied Backs us. 
by this Government with a complete equip- 
ment and with ample pay, and is assured, more- 
over, by ten thousand promises, all of which 
have been tested and fulfilled in ten thousand 
times ten thousand instances, that he shall want 
for no good thing, and shall be brought off, 
finally, more than a conqueror. 

In Elisha's case this heavenly Government 
sent to the aid of its imperiled servant a large 
contingent of heavenly forces. Help from An- 

gels — May we Ex- 
May anything like this, you ask, pectthis? 

be expected in the case of those who fight the 
battles of heaven at the present day ? To which 
we reply, Why not? Our chief adversary being 
a fallen angel, what more reasonable than that 
amongst our helpers should be numbered the 
angels who have kept their first estate? If it 
be true, as the apostle says, that we wrestle not 
against flesh and blood, but against principali- 
ties and powers, and against wicked spirits in 
high places, it would seem as though the help 

9 



98 FORWARD MARCH. 

of good spirits were necessary to make the con- 
test an evenly balanced one. And who can 
doubt, in the light of the New Testament, that 
these angels of God are indeed our allies? 
Does not Christ speak of the power he had to 
summon instantly twelve legions of angels? 
And assuming the angels to be divided into 
war-like legions, for what purpose can this be 
but to do battle for his cause and people? 
And, as though to make assurance doubly sure, 
does not Paul explicitly declare that all these 
angels are ministering spirits, sent forth to min- 
ister to those who shall be heirs of salvation? 

In precisely what way these angels of God 
exert their influence in our behalf, we can not 

The Great Ques- tel1 5 n0r WOuld atl Y g°° d end be 

non-How? served by speculation upon this 

point. Suffice it to know, and to be assured, as 
we are, that they do exert an influence, that 
they do champion our cause, and, under the 
skillful generalship of the Captain of our salva- 
tion, are helping us in the battle of life. 

Thus does the opening light of existence 
reveal to you two hosts. Just as it was with 
the servant of Elisha that memorable morning 



THE ALLIES WHO HELP US. 99 

at Dothan, and with Jacob when, at a great crisis 
in his life, the angels of God met him, and so im- 
pressed him by their presence that celestial Forces 

on Te rr e s tr i a j 

he called the name of the place Ma- Battie-Fieids. 
hanaim, which means " two hosts," — just as it was 
in these cases, precisely so is it in your case. The 
Government of heaven has not forgotten you ; it 
does not leave you without sustenance, and will 
not leave you, in any time of need, without an- 
gelic re-enforcements. And if it was the proud 
boast of Pompey that by one stamp of his foot 
he could summon all Italy to arms, how much 
prouder, how much grander, how much more 
majestic and sublime, the privilege of these 
young people w T ho, by the simple uplifting of an 
appeal to God, can summon all heaven to arms, 
and bring down to every mountain-top of ter- 
restrial conflict the same celestial and invinci- 
ble forces which were round about Klisha! 

But these allies, powerful though they are, 
and helpful as their influence must necessarily 
be in life's battle, are neither our Angeiic Hei P 

not Adequate to 

sole nor our chief reliance. Trust Human Need. 
alone in the angels, and you will lean upon a 
broken staff; for it is questionable if in the 



IOO FORWARD MARCH. 

whole of God's universe there are enough of 
these intelligences to save a single soul, or to 
win for mankind, by their own unaided efforts, 
a single battle over either the world, the flesh, 
or the devil. Had any security been obtainable 
by committing our cause to angelic hands, our 
Father in heaven would no doubt have told us 
so. Yet in all his Word we are not advised in a 
single instance to trust in any of his creatures, 
not even in these brightest and best of all the 
intelligences he has brought into being. On the 
contrary, his constant instructions are that our 
confidence shall be stayed primarily and su- 
premely upon himself. 

Notice at this point the example of Blisha. 
He is not indifferent to the angels. He takes 
comfort from seeing them. He rejoices that 
they are with him. He is resolved, too, that his 
young servant shall see these celestial warriors. 
It is these, moreover, to whom he specially re- 
fers when he seeks to cheer this young man by 
telling him that they who are with them are_ 
more than those who are against them. Elisha's 
communings, however, were not with the angels, 
but with God. It was to God that he prayed; 



THE ALLIES WHO HELP US. IOI 

it was upon God, and not upon any of the crea- 
tures of God, that his reliance was placed. 
Manifestly, too, was it from God that his deliv- 
erance and triumph came. 

And this same Supreme Power, who was the 
supreme reliance of Elisha at Dothan, is the 
Being, beyond all others, upon our chief Reii- 

a n c e in Life's 

whom these young people should Battle, 
rely in the battle of life. We must have him 
with us, or the angels will not be with us, for 
they are his ministers, who .do only his pleasure. 
We must have him to have them; and when we 
do have him, they come to our help of necessity ; 
though if they did not, if for any reason our an- 
gelic allies failed us, and though, indeed, by 
some inconceivable mischance they were every 
one to sink out of existence, until in all the vast 
expanse above us not an angel's wing should 
stir, nor on all the avenues of heaven be heard 
again the rumbling of any of their fiery chariots, — 
even then, having God with us, we should be 
more than a match for all our foes, and more 
than victorious in every conflict. 

The great Bonaparte was held to be himself 
equal to his entire army. His presence, that is, 



102 



FORWARD MARCH. 



in the estimation of the opposite side, made 

the forces he commanded as strong again as 

Advantages of they would have been without 

Having God with 

us. him. But O, my young friends, 

when God is on the field,, he needs no forces. 
When he is near, the whole Government of 
heaven, and all the moral power in the uni- 
verse, is at our back ; for, as Paul triumphantly 

exclaims: " If God be 
for us, who can be 
against us!" As though 
all opposition were as 
insignificant in his 
presence as chaff in 
presence of the mighty 
wind, and as sure to 
johnwks LE v. vanish before his 

glance as the stars are to hide their diminished 

heads when the grand old sun heaves into view. 

Is it not true, therefore, that they who are 

with us are more than they who are with them? 

comparative Counting the angels, and reckon- 

Estimate of Those 

for and Against us. ing upon our side all the spirits 
of the just, and all the good people about us, 
there are more with us than against us T — far 




THE ALLIES WHO HELP US. 1 03 

more, even in the strict numerical sense ; and, 
of course, if we weigh, our forces, instead of 
counting them, all comparison is lost. If, how- 
ever, you insist upon counting, then we beg 
you to hear God asking, How many do you 
count me? 

The battle-cry of Cromwell's Ironsides was: 
"God is with us." No wonder they swept 
everything before them. A win- A Winning Bat . 
ning cry that, every time. Those tle ~ cry - 
who believe God to be with them are likely 
to win, even though their faith be a mistaken 
one. And this triumphant battle-cry may be 
yours, my young friends, in the battle of life; 
and yours, too, beyond a question, may be, and, 
assuming the conditions to be met, shall be, at 
once the fact which that cry expresses, and the 
glorious results which always follow that fact ; 
for, in that case, God shall be with you, and 
through him shall you, without a doubt, trample 
down all your enemies. 

Here, then, is our chief ally. Have God 
with you, and the victory is a foregone conclu- 
sion. The question arises, therefore, How shall 
his presence be secured? 



io4 



FORWARD MARCH. 



To have him with us at all, we must have 

him within us ; and in order to this, there 

what is Neces- must be a voluntary and complete 

sary to put God on 

our side. submission of our will to his will. 

If he is not our all, he will be nothing to us. 
We can not serve God and mammon. To all 
appeals for compromise the answer comes back, 
that memorable answer which Grant gave in the 

late war : "I will accept 
no terms but uncondi- 
tional surrender." 

In this battle of life 
the first object of our 
great Captain is to garri- 
son that weakest, most 
exposed, and most im- 
portant of all positions, 
the human heart. That secured, there is a chance 
for us ; that neglected, there is no chance. Hence 
The Great stra- it is at this point that true religion 

tegic Point in 

Life's Battle. always begins. We do not put it on, 
we get it in. It is not a profession, it is a pos- 
session. And the terms upon which this pos- 
session comes to us are those of unconditional 
surrender. 




Oliver Cromwell. 



THE ALLIES WHO HELP US. 1 05 

When a choice has been made, and we have 
put ourselves, by repentance and faith, squarely 
on the side of God, he immediately arrays him- 
self on our side, and the first thing he does is to 
regenerate our natures and to lift up within us 
the standard of his spiritual presence. Then 
the enemy, when he comes, finds the citadel in 
which he had hoped to establish his own camp, 
already occupied. 

It is just as it was in the war Elisha had 
helped the King of Israel to carry on so success- 
fully against the Assyrians. No a Memorable 

Campaign — What 

sooner had the enemy purposed to it Teaches, 
ambush at a certain point, than the prophet, 
who divined their purpose, forestalled them by 
sending Israel's army to take possession in ad- 
vance. So in the battle of life. The powers 
of darkness would fain establish their ambush 
in the citadel of your hearts. They know well 
the advantage of so doing. But God, who is 
aware of their purposes, and knows, too, how 
best to frustrate these hellish designs, would 
fain pre-empt their intended camping-ground for 
himself; and with this object in view, has sent 
out ambassadors to announce to all young people 



106 FORWARD MARCH. 

that his very first, his most urgent, and most 
imperative command is, My son, give me thy 
heart. 

But our hearts garrisoned, will the enemy 
then leave us ? Ah I did Syria's hosts abandon 
After conver- tne struggle against Israel when 
sion-what ? their chosen camping-grounds were 
pre-empted? What meaneth, then, that scene 
at Dothan, when, by the dawn's early light, the 
young servant of Blisha discovered that a mighty 
army was investing that city? So, rest assured, 
will it be in your case. To be truly converted 
is half of the battle, but it is not the whole of it. 
Such an experience gives you an unspeakable 
advantage, and it is indispensably necessary. 
This, however, though it makes peace within, is 
far from making peace without. It puts God 
on your side, but it does not cause either the 
devil or the world to look favorably upon you. 
Your conversion, in fact, will provoke these ad- 
versaries to sharper hostility. This for the rea- 
son that it will show them, beyond the possi- 
bility of mistake, that you are now squarely 
upon the side of right, and are defying them to 
do their worst. 



THE ALLIES WHO HELP US. 



107 



In this new aspect of life's battle, while still 
feeling that the best of all is, God is with you, 
prudence will require that you look carefully 




General Grant. 



about to see if there are not some earthly alli- 
ances Which Offer help. Doing Human Alli- 
ances which offer 

this, you w T ill find other forts fly- Hei P . 

ing the standard of the Lord of hosts besides 



108 FORWARD MARCH. 

that within your own hearts, and other soldiers 
than yourself who are fighting the Lord's bat- 
tles. Every true Church is such a fort, and in 
one of these you will be wise to seek refuge. 

But can not we be Christians, you will ask, 
without being Church members? To which we 

why we Need answer, Why should you wish to 
the church. be? when the Church is i nten ded 

to help you, and has been placed in the world 
expressly that it might serve as one of your 
most potent allies? Why should any soldier 
expose himself, when it is possible for him to 
fight from behind fortifications ? Or why should 
he rush upon the foe single-handed when 
there are comrades anxious to join him in the 
assault ? 

Besides, it is inconceivable that one who is 
truly converted, would want to hold aloof from 
the Church; for is it not a law of nature that 
like should be attracted to like ; and do we not 
see in all the affairs of the world that men who 
have common interests, and are enlisted in the 
same cause, bivouac about the same camp-fires, 
and seek to cheer and strengthen one another 
by companionship and by a union of their forces? 



THE ALLIES WHO HELP US. 1 09 

So, my young friends, don't think of trying 
to get along without the Church. Why should 
you, when the Church is such a sterling Advice 

of an Old Sea- 

powerful ally? How can you, and captain, 
still have God with you, when the Church is the 
Church, of God, and when its members are the 
standing army of his earthly Government? To 
change the figure for a moment, let me give you 
the advice of an old sea-captain, addressed orig- 
inally to a young man who was moving from 
one city to another, and who fortunately had a 
Church letter to take with him. "As soon as 
you reach Philadelphia," said the captain, " pre- 
sent that letter to some Christian Church. I 'm 
an old sailor," he continued, "and it is my rule, 
as soon as I get into port, to fasten my ship fore 
and aft to the wharf. It costs a little wharf- 
age," he added, "but it is a great deal better 
and a great deal cheaper than to leave the ship 
out in the stream, floating hither and thither 
with the tide." 

Thus spoke that wise old sea-captain, and 
so say we. Get into the harbor, get close 
against the wharf. Anchor your ship fore and 
aft to the Church. Ally yourselves to Christian 



HO FORWARD MARCH. 

people. Throw about your lives the influences 
of Christian fellowship. As the best means of 
escaping bad company, surround yourselves 
with good company. That you may not float 
with the tide, get beyond reach of the tide. 
That the storms may not sweep over you, seek 
a refuge from the storms. 

What that large stone church at Johnstown 

did, which was so strong that it divided the 

Lesson from the flood into tw0 currents, that every 

Johnstown Flood. Church does tQ ^ invading army 

of worldliness and wickedness. That is, it 
cleaves this army in twain, and thus saves those 
who are within it from the full shock of assaults 
which might otherwise sweep them to destruc- 
tion. Hence the advisability and the necessity, 
to all who would succeed in the battle of life, 
of having an enrollment in the Church, of linking 
their destinies to the Church, and of using the 
Church in all possible and practical ways as one 
of the greatest and best of their earthly allies. 

And now, back to the mountain-top, where 
Blisha and his servant stood, and where, inev- 
itably, at this opening period of their lives, these 
young people are standing. It is day-break 



THE ALLIES WHO HELP US. Ill 

with our young friends. They are getting now 
their earliest views of what life promises to be. 
Of necessity the scene is a mixed Another Glimpse 

of Life's Golden 

one. Before them and above them Morning. 
are visions which inspire. Beneath are the 
hosts of darkness, the mighty foes which seek 
their ruin. Nor is this all they see. Their 
gaze, we trust, penetrates now into the invisible. 
Our effort has been to open your eyes, that 
you might see your defenses as well as your 
dangers, your allies no less clearly than your 
foes. Amongst the former, and very Helps to Suc . 
prominent amongst them, are the cess in Llfe ' 
angels. Other helps are the good examples and 
the good influences that are thrown about you. 
Still another potential aid to a godly life is the 
Church, with its sweet communions, its gracious 
fellowship, and its union of forces. Better than 
all, though, is the fact which underlies, which 
crowns, and which effectualizes the other help- 
ful forces, the blessed fact that God is with you. 
Not looking upon you from his throne in the 
skies, but with you. Not twenty miles away, 
as Sheridan was at a critical time in the late 
war, nor situated as Sherman was when he 



112 FOR WARD MARCH. 

telegraphed to another general, " Hold the fort, 
I am coming;" but with you, really with you, is 
this God ; his soul-inspiriting message being, not, 
"Hold' the fort, for I am coming," but, "Hold 
thsi fort, for I am here;" his presence and gra- 
cious aid, moreover, making it absolutely cer- 
tain that they who are with you are more than 
all who can be against you, and that if, in this 
great battle of life, you prove true to your trust, 
you can not fail to win a great victory. 




PERFECT THROUGH SUFFERING 



:►♦<* 



V. 

The Captain Who Leads us. 



>♦<«: 



IO 



CONTENTS. 



THE Divine Purpose in Human Life— Earthly Hon- 
ors in Contrast with Heavenly — The Chief End 
of Existence — Our Imperative Need of Jesus Christ- 
Prizes WE MAY WIN BY OUR OWN UNAIDED EFFORTS — SUC- 
cess which means only failure — two notable llves, 
and what they teach — true success only by self-de- 
niae — What it means to enter the Army — Shoulder- 
ing the Musket from Principle — First Requirement 
of the Captain who leads us — Three Inspiring Ex- 
amples— Noble Resolve of a Burmese Boatman — What 
our Captain has done for us— The Great Blot on 
Bonaparte's Escutcheon — How Battles were directed 
in the late War — Peter the Great and Christ the 
Greatest — Advantage of rising from the Ranks — 
Qualities of a Perfect Commander — Alexander and 
Hannibal — A Leader who is always in Front — 
" There 's the Duke, God bless him "—Of Two Com- 
manders, WHICH SHALL HAVE US? — HOW AN ANCIENT 

City was saved— Contingency in which Life must 
be a Failure. 
114 






^F"^ 



«^psT vrsT •^sT •p* */ts» •isT •fC •tc •Ki i?f*r^^|\r^Tsr ••p* • / f\ 



V. 



THE CAPTAIN WHO LEADS US. 




HO this Captain is, what his special 
qualifications, how these were ac- 
quired, and how his leadership over 
human lives is exercised, — all these 
are points of interest respecting 
which we may fully inform ourselves from a 
sublime passage in that marvelous Epistle to the 
Hebrews, where we are told that " it became 
him, for whom are all things and bv whom are 
all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, 
to make the Captain of their salvation perfect 
through suffering." 

That which is here emphasized as the prime 

Object Of the Divine Solicitude, and The Divine Pur- 
pose in Human 

the supreme end of all God's deal- Life. 

ings with humanity, is our salvation. Note, too, 



Il6 FORWARD MARCH. 

that the salvation he has in view for ns is a 
glorious one. It is glorious because it is so 
complete. It meets fully all our needs, and sat- 
isfies abundantly all our noblest aspirations. 
Chiefly, though, is this salvation a glorious sal- 
vation, because it lands us at last in that place 
of glory where God himself dwells, and entitles 
us, as our final inheritance, to that far more ex- 
ceeding and eternal weight of glory of which 
one of the apostles speaks. 

This is what Almighty God has in view for 
us. His purpose is to bring many sons unto 

Earthly Honors glory. This is his desire concern- 
in Contrast with 

Heavenly. ing every one of you, and that for 

which by the ministrations of his grace and 
through the allotments of his providence, he is 
constantly laboring. Of small moment is it to 
him whether we win or lose the baubles of honor 
which the world holds out to us. To us, some- 
times, these minor prizes seem exceedingly de- 
sirable — so much so that the acquisition of them 
becomes our ruling passion and the gauge of 
our success in life. 

So engrossed are some of us with these 
things, that the great prize is lost sight of alto- 



THE CAPTAIN WHO LEADS US. 1 17 

gether. As in that strikingly symbolic picture 
which represents a man engaged in raking 
stubble. Above him is an angel holding out a 
star-gemmed crown. The man, however, does 
not see this angelic visitor. So absorbed is he 
with the paltry occupations of this earth, that 
the dignities and rewards held out to him from 
the skies do not come within the scope of his 
vision. And so is it, we fear, with many in real 
life. What we want is success in temporal 
things. This battle, to most young people, 
means merely a struggle for wealth, for social 
position, for fame amongst our fellow-men, for 
the honors this world has to give. These ac- 
quired, we shall hold ourselves to have suc- 
ceeded ; these missed, we shall think we are 
beaten. 

The apostle, however, undertakes to give us 
God's view of the battle of life, which, as we 
might naturally have expected, re- The Chief End 
verses altogether the ordinary view, of Existence - 
holding out to us, as the chief end of existence, 
neither worldly riches nor worldly fame nor 
wordly success of any description, but holding be- 
fore us as the great, all-important, all-embracing 



n8 



FORWARD MARCH 



prize, to acquire which all hands should be 
reached out and every nerve strained, the com- 
bination of blessedness which is expressed in 
this word salvation, a word which means, as we 
have already said, not only our deliverance from 

; sin in the pres- 

I ent world, but 
| our final home 
| bringing into 
| his own pres- 
1 ence and glory 
in the world to 
come. 

That is what 
God says we 
are to fight for ; 
and we are fur- 
ther informed 
that to make 
possible the 
winning of that prize, Jesus Christ has been ap- 
our imperative pointed our Captain in life's battle. 

Need of Jesus 

Christ. Really, this word Captain might as 

well have been rendered Author, and the whole 
trend of the passage is to show that Christ is 




THE CAPTAIN WHO LEADS US. 119 

the Author of salvation, and that this great bless- 
ing would be impossible to us without him. 
There is much we can do for ourselves in life, 
as there is also very much that can be done for 
us by kind friends and by adventitious circum- 
stances. But one thing we can not do for our- 
selves, one thing our friends can not do for us, 
and that is the all-important thing; for there is 
no power under heaven by which any of us can 
be saved, excepting the power which comes from 
heaven. 

Some prizes you may win by your own un- 
aided efforts. We do not undervalue human 
capability, nor would we have our Prizes we may 

■win by our own 

young friends underestimate it. In unaided Efforts. 
worldly matters you may possibly win without 
Christ. Not so surely without him as with him ; 
but you may win without him in the secular 
realm. Men have done this. They have scaled 
the dizziest heights of human achievement; 
they have won names for themselves which have 
echoed through the ages; they have attained to 
vast empire, and have exercised sway over mill- 
ions of their fellow-creatures. Others have done 
this without Christ; you, possibly, may do it. 



120 FORWARD MARCH. 

Not so well without him as with him, assuming 
your ambitions to be legitimate ; nor, in this day 
when Christian principle is valued so highly, 
can you expect to win so easily without him as 
with him. But exceptional instances of such 
success — success achieved without the help of 
God through Christ — do occur even in this age ; 
and hence we can not affirm that such a thing 
may not be possible in your case. 

Suppose, though, you won these prizes, what 

would it profit you to gain the whole world if 

success which you lost your soul ? What if your 

Means only Fail- 
ure, name be lauded on earth, if it be 

written not in heaven? What though you do 

acquire sway over others, if you bring not your 

own spirit into subjection? What though you 

should ascend the very loftiest pinnacle of 

earthly fame, providing you stood there at last, in 

hopeless solitude and in shivering apprehension, 

with no chariot of mercy to transport you from 

these earthly altitudes to the loftier pinnacles 

of immortal glory? 

Ah! be warned, my young friends. Have 

you heard of that tomb-stone over the grave of a 

man who died worth eight millions, the simple 



THE CAPTAIN WHO LEADS US. 121 

inscription upon which, placed there at the 
man's own dying request, is, "Most miserable?" 
Have you forgotten the death-scene two Notable 

Lives, and what 

of the venerable Cornelius Vander- they Teach, 
bilt, whose final solace, notwithstanding all his 
wealth and fame, was found in those simple lines, 

In my hands no price I bring; 
Simply to thy cross I cling? 

Be warned, then, by these examples. Learn 
from them, first, that a man may make a mag- 
nificent success of his life in a worldly sense, 
and at the same time, in the better and higher 
sense, may achieve only a miserable failure ; 
and, secondly, learn this, that the great prize, 
lacking which all other prizes will be only as 
the trappings which decorate a funeral, but 
having which the soul will be rich and glorious 
though it have not a dollar to its earthly credit, 
is this grand prize of salvation through the 
merits of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

Another suggestion of this passage which 
presents Christ as the Captain of True success 

only by Self-de- 

our salvation, is that the path to niai. 

victor}- in life's battle will lead, of necessity, 

through hardships and self-denial. Is it not 

ii 



122 FORWARD MARCH. 

inevitable that if the Captain could triumph 
only through suffering, the soldiers following 
him will have to carve out their triumph in the 
same way? This fact, however, the generality 
of young people ignore. They are hoping to 
have an easy time in life. They are nattering 
themselves that life's arena will be what some 
emigrants foolishly suppose this new land of the 
West will prove to them, — a place where prizes 
may be obtained by merely stooping to pick 
them up. 

They have the same idea some had when 

they entered the army in the late war. Most 

what it Means of the volunteers understood what 

to Enter the 

Army. it meant ; but some went out under 

the impression that army service would be a 
sort of picnic, with plenty of fun and not much 
to do. But O, what an awakening these had 
after a few days of marching in the rain, and a 
few nights of camping in the mud, and a few 
meals on hard-tack, and a few experiences of 
what it is to breathe the hot breath of battle ! 
So is there, we fear, a dreadful awakening in 
store for some of these young people in this 
battle of life. They are hoping for an easy time 



THE CAPTAIN WHO LEADS US. 1 23 

of it ; but the very fact that life is a battle, ren- 
ders such an expectation absurd on the very face 
of things. Besides, how can we expect an easy 
time when our Captain, in fitting himself to lead 
us, had so hard a time, and was qualified for this 
task only through suffering? Is the servant 
better than his Lord, or is it not enough for him 
that he be as his Lord, and march to victory by 
the same rugged pathway? 

Is this then, you ask — is this all you can offer 
us in asking us to become Christians? Have 
you nothing to say of the rewards shouldering the 

Musket from Prin- 

of this service? But let me tell cipie. 
you, my young friends, that in obtruding such a 
view as this you reduce the Christian life to a 
plane where it does not belong, and give prom- 
inence to motives which should be kept in the 
background. Should the President of this Re- 
public call to-morrow for volunteers for our Na- 
tional army, the question of true patriots would 
be, not, Will army service pay? but, Is the cause 
a just one? Poor soldiers would they make who 
should fight only with their monthly allowance 
in view. All history attests that, excepting in 
'the rarest instances, mercenary troops can not 



124 FORWARD MARCH. 

be relied upon. Those only are worthy soldiers, 
and, as a rule, those only are 'valiant, who 
shoulder the musket from principle, and whose 
feet, as they advance to battle, keep time to the 
sacred music of patriotism. 

So in this battle of life. Not for the loaves 

and fishes does God expect you to serve him. 

First Require- With no eye to either the bounty 

ment of the Cap- 
tain who Leads us. or the pension should you enlist. 

God's first appeal to you has reference solely to 
the righteousness of his cause. He wants you 
to serve him, not for pay, but from principle. 
Preliminary to all else, he asks for your affec- 
tion. That yielded, the service of the life fol- 
lows as a natural consequence. 

The true spirit of those who would follow 

the banners of God is the spirit shown by that 

Three inspiring seeker of religion who, when he 

Examples. wag ^^ ^ad ^ counte d the COSt, 

replied, No, for he was determined to have it, 
let it cost what it might ; the spirit shown by 
William Taylor, in his labors for the redemp- 
tion of Africa, who exclaims, "O that I could 
multiply myself into a thousand, and give a 
thousand years to help Jesus!" the spirit of 



THE CAPTAIN WHO LEADS US. 1 25 

Livingstone, who said once: "People talk of the 
sacrifices I have made. But can you call that a 
sacrifice which is only a small payment on a 
great debt? Say, rather, it is a privilege. I 
never made a sacrifice." 

This is the proper spirit for God's soldiers, 
and this is the spirit which should impel these 
young people into his service, — the Nobie Resolve 

of a Burmese 

spirit of that Burmese convert Boatman, 
who was asked if he would not devote himself 
to the preaching of the gospel to his country- 
men. He was a boatman, earning thirty shil- 
lings a month, and the missionary frankly told 
him that in his new vocation he would get but 
eight shillings a month. " Can you go," he 
said, "for eight shillings?" The man sat for a 
time rapt in thought ; it seemed hard for him 
to decide. But he did decide, and his decision 
was a sublime one, for at last he looked up and 
said: "No, I can not go for eight shillings, but 
I can go for Christ's sake." 

And so is it, for Christ's sake, and not for the 
profit there is in it, that we would have all these 
young people fighting righteously and valiantly 
in this battle of life. There is profit in it ; we 



126 



FORWARD MARCH. 



do not ignore this fact ; we thank God for it. 
There are hardships to be braved, and so also 




David Livingstone. 

are there rewards to be won. We do not lose 
sight of this fact, and, on proper occasions, we 



THE CAPTAIN WHO LEADS US. 12 J 

do not hesitate to give emphasis to it. But what 

we say now is, Do this for Christ's sake ; give 

your hearts to God, consecrate your lives to the 

service of God, fight manfully and perseveringly 

under the banners of God, for Christ's sake. 

With the object of stimulating you to such a 

course, let us remind you who Christ is. He is 

the Author of your salvation. Lost what our cap- 
tain has done for 

by nature, by him you have been us. 
redeemed. Far away from God, his blood has 
brought you nigh. Children of wrath, through 
him you are made heirs of divine mercy. , In 
slaver}- to the devil, he makes it possible for you 
to become children of God. Destitute of strength 
with which to meet your mighty foes, he gives 
you all the strength you need for this purpose. 
With nothing in prospect for the future, he 
opens the doors of Paradise to your vision and 
offers you an entrance therein. 

And not only does he make salvation possi- 
ble, but it is through him, and through him 
alone, that it becomes actual. Besides being 
the Author of your salvation, he is the Captain 
of it, the one who leads you, who cares for you, 
who directs your movements, who watches your 



128 FORWARD MARCH. 

foes, and works constantly to frustrate their 
hellish designs. 

This Captain of ours does not marshal his 
forces for the assault, and then forsake them. 
He does not present victory to us as a possi- 
bility, and then leave us to carve it out for our- 
The Great Biot selves as best we can. The great 

on Bonaparte's 

Escutcheon. blot on the military escutcheon of 

Bonaparte was his heartless abandonment of his 
brave soldiers in that memorable retreat from 
Moscow. But who ever heard of Christ for- 
saking his soldiers in the time of peril? 

It was all right, no doubt, for our generals, 

during the late war, to watch the battles, as 

they did often, from a distant eminence. This 

How Battles was strategy; it was the best they 

were Directed in 

the Late War. could do. In a new: paper article 
we read, not long ago, of the first bat.!e of Fred- 
ericksburg, and how Burnside, from a hill on 
the opposite side of the Rappahannock, w ith his 
orderlies and a telegraphic battery near him, 
watched and directed that battle. This, no 
doubt, was a wise proceeding on Burnside's part. 
But this Captain of ours pursues a different course 
altogether. His policy is to come near to us. 



THE CAPTAIN WHO LEADS US. 1 29 

Omnipresent as he is, he can be with us, and 
is with ns — with every one of us — right where 
the fighting is being done. Show us where the 




At the Front. 



battle is the fiercest, said an ancient people, 
and there, surely, shall we find our prince. So, 
show us that spot on the great battle-field of life 



130 FOR WARD MARCH. 

where Christian soldiers are most sorely pressed, 
and that heart of man or woman which is most 
fiercely besieged by the tempter, and there al- 
ways shall you find our Prince and the Captain 
of our salvation. 

Let us emphasize again the fact that this 
Captain of ours won his peerless distinction by 
suffering. He made himself competent to lead 
us through a world of sorrow by first passing 
through it himself. That he might fail in no 
instance to secure victory for his soldiers, he 
won at the outset a great personal victory. 
That by observation and experience he might 
qualify himself to be a successful commander, 
he first became an ordinary recruit. 

For an illustration of the course pursued in 

this respect by the Lord Jesus Christ, we point 

Peter the Great you to Peter the Great entering 

and Christ the 

Greatest. the ranks of his own army, and 

then rising, by his own merits, to the place of 
supreme command; and afterwards, that he 
might teach the art of ship-building to his peo- 
ple, learning it himself by working as a common 
laborer in the dock-yards at Amsterdam. In 
that course on the part of the great Peter — a 



THE CAPTAIN WHO LEADS US. 131 

course of conduct at which the world has won- 
dered ever since — behold an illustration, though 
a very feeble one, of what Christ did when, by 
his matchless stoop from heaven to earth, and 
by the life of conflict and hardship which fol- 
lowed, he made himself perfect as the Captain 
of our salvation "through suffering." 

What soldier would not prefer as his com- 
mander, other things being equal, one who had 
risen from the ranks? Such a Advantage of 

Rising from the 

man, he would say, will necessarily Ranks, 
have the feelings of a brother toward me. And 
is not that precisely how our Commander feels ; 
for does not the same apostle who holds him up 
as the Captain of our salvation tell us in the 
same connection that he is not ashamed to call 
us brethren? 

The captain who is made perfect through 
suffering will know how to sympathize with 
other sufferers ; and not only how to sympa- 
thize, but how to succor and relieve. And is 
not this another characteristic of our Captain ; 
for are we not assured that, in that he himself 
hath suffered, being tempted, he is able to suc- 
cor his tempted followers ? 



132 FOR WARD MARCH. 

And so we might go on. Portray before us, 
one after another, all the various qualities neces- 
sary or desirable in a perfect captain, and in 
this Captain not only will we match them, but 
we will undertake to eclipse them. 

A perfect commander must have large 

knowledge. He must know the strength, and 

Qualities of a must be familiar with the tactics 

Perfect Com- 
mander, of the enemy. He should know, 

also, the territory on which the decisive battles 
are likely to be fought. He should be well ac- 
quainted, moreover, with the strength and per- 
sonnel of his own forces. And will any one 
question the possession of these qualities by our 
Commander? 

Then, you talk of sympathy. One great 
commander has immortalized himself by the 
fact that at the close of a fierce battle, when 
one of his aids, by a great effort, procured him 
a draught of water, he waved it from him and 
ordered that it be given to a wounded private 
near by. A noble act, in very truth ; and yet, 
compared to the sympathy and love displayed 
for man by this Captain of ours, not worthy 
to be mentioned. Had that commander, in a 



THE CAPTAIN WHO LEADS US. 1 33 

moment of supreme peril, bared his own breast 
to receive the saber-thrust intended to take the 
life of one of his soldiers, there would have been 
some ground for a comparison in the two cases; 
for precisely that has our Commander done, and 
a thousand times more. 

Then, you talk of heroism — of commanders 
who have shared the drudgery of the soldier's 
toil, and have gone before him in Alexander and 
difficult and hazardous campaigns. HannibaL 
You tell us of Hannibal, who led his men in 
carving a pathway through the mighty Alps, 
and of Alexander, who wielded a pick for the 
inspiration of his disheartened troops, as they 
cut their way through ice and snow into Persia. 
And where is there a youth whose blood did not 
quicken and whose heart did not throb with ad- 
miration when he first read of these instances 
of condescension and heroism ? 

Let me tell you, then, my young friends, that 
such a Commander is the one we follow. Ours, 
in fact, is a far better and nobler A Leaderwhc / is 
Commander ; for occurrences like AIways in Front - 
those just cited were exceptional with Alexander 
and Hannibal, whereas our Captain is always in 



134 FOR WARD MARCH. 

the lead. He always goes before us. The 
harder the rock, the more surely will his pick be 
the first to smite it. The rougher the path, the 
more certain that his steps will be the first to 
tread it; for he never says, "Go into battle;" 
it is always with him, "Come into battle." And 
what that ancient king of Hungary did in one 
instance, when, to keep his soldiers from lying 
down in the snow, to sleep what must surely 
have been the sleep of death, he commanded 
them to follow him in single file, stepping in 
the tracks made by his own feet, and to con- 
tinue their forward march only so long as he 
should thus make a way for them — that our 
Commander does all the time ; for he never re- 
quires us to go where he does not himself lead 
the way, and asks us to pursue no path which 
he does not first hallow with his own steps, and 
light up with the cheer of his own blessed 
presence. 

And so we might still go on enumerating 
the perfections of this Captain of our salvation. 
Think, for instance, what his power must be, in 
view of the fact that he received his commission 
from the Being for whom are all things and by 



THE CAPTAIN WHO LEADS US. 1 35 

whom are all things, and when he himself de- 
clares : "All power is given unto me in heaven 
and in earth." 

Think, too, of the victories he has won. In 
one of Wellington's battles the lines wavered, 
we are told, because the com- "There's the 

Duke, God Bless 

mander conld not be seen. Pres- him." 
ently, however, he appeared, when one of his 
soldiers cried out : " There 's the duke, God 
bless him; I 'd rather see him than a brigade." 
And no wonder, says the one telling the story, 
for in him he saw a captain who had never lost 
a battle, and whose single presence was equal 
to five thousand men. And will some one tell 
us when our Captain ever lost a battle ? We 
have seen pictures of Wellington in uniform, 
and have stood amazed at the stars and medals 
glittering upon his breast. But let me tell you, 
my young friends, that you could not ade- 
quately decorate this Captain of ours, though 
all the stars in the gem-spangled firmament 
should flash from his uniform, nor make medals 
enough to celebrate the victories he has won, 
though the gold of all the continents were 
melted for this purpose. 



136 



FORWARD MARCH. 



Such, briefly and imperfectly sketched, is the 

Captain — the skillful, powerful, courageous, sym- 

of two com- pathetic, and victorious Captain — 

manders, which 

shaii have us ? under whose triumphant leader- 
ship we would have these young people advance 
to the battle of life. Take your choice, my 
young friends. Two commanders are bidding 

for your allegi- 
ance, — the Savior 
who has redeemed 
you, and the Evil 
One, who wishes to 
destroy you. Take 
your choice ; re- 
membering this, 
however, that if 

The Duke of Wellington. yOU do not choOSe 

Christ's service, you fall into Satan's ranks as a 
natural consequence of your indecision. You do 
not need to choose his service. To be led cap- 
tive by the devil, all you need do is simply to 
refuse the overtures of this Captain of your sal- 
vation. 

Remember, too, that nothing will suffice to 
put you on God's side save the complete sur- 




THE CAPTAIN WHO LEADS US. 137 

render to him of your hearts and lives. History 
relates that when the city of Capua was threat- 
ened by the Sainnites, an appeal How an Ancient 
was made to Rome, and the an- City was Saved " 
swer being that Rome could not interfere, the 
citizens sent this response: "If," said they, 
"you will not defend us, you will, at least, de- 
fend yourselves, and from this moment we give 
our city to the Romans, and become their sub- 
jects;" the result being, as a matter of course, 
that Rome then interposed and saved them. 
And here, let me assure you, is the only way in 
which the gracious help of Christ can be secured 
in this battle of life which you are entering. It 
will not suffice merely to pray for his interposi- 
tion. You must deserve it, you must entitle 
yourselves to it, by the complete surrender of 
your lives to his service. 

Remember finally, my young friends, that 
this Captain is a necessity to you ; so much so 
that without him life's battle, taken contingency in 

which Life must 

as a whole, is sure to be a failure, be a Failure. 
Some battles you may win without Christ. 
You might possibly gain wealth without him. 
It is also possible for you to win a species of 



138 FORWARD MARCH. 

worldly honor without Christ. But we are ap- 
pealing to you as beings who are immortal ; as 
those who have souls to save; as those who 
must stand at the judgment bar of God ; as those 
who need pardon for sin, and the purifying in- 
fluences of atoning blood to wash away the. de- 
filement of sin; as those to whose vision a door 
opens into the world beyond, revealing a des- 
tiny of happiness or woe which will never end. 
This is the stand-point from ' which we make 
our appeal to you ; and keeping these facts in 
mind, we assure you again, with all the solem- 
nity we can command, that without Christ you 
can win no success in life that will be at all 
worthy of either your capabilities or your op- 
portunities, and at the same time that you can 
gain nothing in this world, can hope for nothing 
in the next. 




THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS. 



:►♦<«£ 



VI. 
f HG WeilPONS OF OUR WftF^Fft^e. 



139 



CONTENTS 



NECESSITY of a Good Equipment— Dreadful Foes 
whom we can not see— a call to manfulness — 
That Noble Drummer-boy— Life's Emergencies, how 
to meet them — decisive moments in great battles — 
Why Some Days are Evie Days— How Evie Days may 
be made Good — Snatching Honor from the Jaws of 
Danger — Putting on the Armor — What our Heemet 
signifies — Vaeor in Battee, how to secure it — Stir- 
ring Address of a Wise Generae to his Troops — A 
Sure Antidote to Discouragement — Evie Thoughts; 
Two Methods of treating them — The Breastpeate 
of Righteousness — Guarding the Steps, Why and 
How? — The Uses of Gospee Foot-gear — An Interest- 
ing Paradox — Morae Security, how obtained — The 
Shield we are to carry — How to resist Tempta- 
tion — The Best Weapon in the Universe — Signifi- 
cant Conduct of Two English Rulers — Necessity of 
Watchfulness and Prayer — How a Memorable Battle 
was won — What it means to be fully equipped for 
Life's Warfare. 
140 



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-|n, "•|\.~ •T^ •TsT^ •TC^ •T^ •Tsi^^Ts. ^sT^ *-tC 1/fZ •jS* l^ST •T\T"^TsT •TC^^f^ •jC^'Pfv 



VI 



THE WEAPONS OF OUR WARFARE. 




HE great difference between ancient 
and modern methods of warfare, and 
that which, more clearly than any 
thing else, makes the latter supe- 
rior to the former, is to be found 
in the superior equipment which is now afforded. 
Men were as brave and as strong in the early 
days as in these, and there was as much strategy 
then as now. But the Greeks and Romans, ac- 
coutered as they used to be, would fall before 
the battalions of to-day like grain before one 
of our modern mowing-machines. The weapons 
would do it. 

And if superior weapons are so essential and 
make so vast a difference in secular warfare, so 
are they equally necessary and equally potential 

141 



142 FORWARD MARCH. 

in this higher conflict which we call the battle 

of life. If existence were only a dress-parade 

Necessity of a affair, the quality of our equipment 

Good Equipment. ^ Q ^ be Qf j^ importance . 

Life, however, is a serious business ; it is a 
mighty struggle with foes who are so numerous 
their name is legion, and so powerful that their 
strength can scarcely be measured. This fact 
Paul emphasizes. We wrestle, he says, not 
against flesh and blood, but against the principali- 
ties, the powers, the rulers of the darkness of this 
w T orld, and against wicked spirits in high places. 
The allusion is, doubtless, to those fallen 
angels, with Satan at their head, of whom Charles 
Wesley says that 

They throng the air and darken heaven, 
And rule this lower world. 

Not alone in the passage quoted, but in many 

other places in the Scriptures are these alluded 

Dreadful Foes to, and in every case the impres- 

whom we can not 

see. sion sought to be conveyed is that 

these spiritual foes are the most powerful and 
dangerous of any that engage us. They are 
more to be feared than others, because they are 
invisible. The advantages afforded when we 



THE WEAPONS OF OUR WARFARE. 143 

can see those who are combating ns, are too 
obvious to need comment. But these wicked 
spirits in high places, led by the prince of the 
power of the air, we can not see. They are 
foes, too, of superior intelligence and of vast 
resources. They are not equal to God in these 
respects, but they are far above humanity; 
as much so as the angels are, for they are 
angels, we must remember, though they are 
fallen ones. 

Having shown us, from the gravity of the 
situation, how indispensable it is that we ad- 
vance to life's responsibilities with the utmost 
thoughtfulness and in the best possible state of 
preparation, the apostle we have quoted then 
tells us in what our preparation should consist. 
"Wherefore," he says — seeing you have such 
enemies to meet and such a battle to fight — 
" take unto you the whole armor of God, that 
ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, 
and having done all, to stand." 

Note, as an introductory thought, that God 
expects you to make a bold stand A Cal! t0 Man . 
in life's battle. We are to choose fulness - 
our ground, and then maintain it. We are to 



144 FORWARD MARCH. 

walk, not according to the elastic suggestions 
of self-interest, but by the strict rule of princi- 
ple. We are to be men, not cowards. We are 
not to be sometimes up and sometimes down; 
but we are to be always up and at it. When, 
at Waterloo, the remnant of Bonaparte's favor- 
ite troops were asked to yield themselves pris- 
oners, the answer came back, we are told, from 
those heroes of fifty battles: " The Old Guard 
dies, it never surrenders." And clearly is it the 
design of Almighty God that we shall never 
surrender. 

That drummer-boy, captured by the enemy, 

and in the tent of the opposing general, com- 

That Nobie nianded to play for the entertain- 

Drum m er-boy. ment of the omcer s gathered 

around, — let all these young people take their 
cue in life's battle from him. All sorts of mar- 
tial music he rolled off, save one sort. That 
he could not render, and would not attempt. 
"Play a retreat," said the general; but the lad 
replied: "Excuse me, sir, I never learned to play 
a retreat." 

So would the God of battles have it in our 
case. We are to stand, not to fall; to maintain 



THE WEAPONS OF OUR WARFARE. 145 

our ground, not to run away. A retreat should 
we never play ; but, instead of that, on every 




9 7mfiffl6^g&~- 



occasion when the battle of life seems to be 
going against us, we must meet the crisis by 



146 FORWARD MARCH. 

sounding an advance and by rallying our forces 
for a fresh attack. How it impresses others 

Life's Emergen- we do UOt knOW, DUt to US the SUg- 
cies— How to Meet 

them. gestion of an inspired apostle, that 

God's soldiers are always to stand their ground, 
and that, having done all, they are still to stand, 
has a tone of unmistakable triumph in it; for 
the inference we draw is, that what God intends 
us to do he will enable us to do, if we allow 
him, and that the soldier who is found always 
standing, and who still stands when the bugle 
of release has sounded and the smoke of the 
final engagement has blown away, can not be 
other than a conqueror. 

Another thought suggested is, that life's bat- 
tle will bring to us times of special emergency. 
Decisive Mo- Such occasions arise in every bat- 

ments in Great 

Battles. tie. Hostilities may be in progress 

for days, but the crisis lasts, it may be, only an 
hour ; in some cases only a few minutes. The 
successful storming of some strong position; 
the hazardous crossing of a stream ; the daunt- 
less stand made by a few brave men against 
some grand rush upon which the enemy has 
staked all, — these are the things, generally, 



THE WEAPONS OF OUR WARFARE. 147 

which turn the tide and settle the final issue 
when warrior meets warrior on the field of 
blood. And so in the battle of life. The strug- 
gle is a never-ceasing one ; hostilities will con- 
tinue to the end ; and yet, in nearly all cases, 
the fight is won or lost by the decision shown 
and the valor displayed in some great emergency. 

These times of crisis the apostle calls "evil 
days; 1 ' and so they undoubtedly are in one sense. 
Evil days are these, because they WhySomeDays 
environ us with all the powers of are Evil Days> 
evil ; evil, because the Evil One is so near to us; 
evil, because they contain within them such 
enormous possibilities of evil for our future life 
and for the welfare of our souls; evil days, be- 
cause they may possibly prove to be days of 
disaster, days of weak yielding, days when a 
crown and a palm and a kingdom may be bar- 
tered in woeful exchange for a mess of worldly 
pottage or a moment of sensual pleasure. Evil 
enough are such days in this sense. 

There is a sense, though, thanks be to God, 
in which these evil days may be transformed 
into good days; everything, as to this, depending 
upon our conduct in the crisis. Thiuk of Joseph 



148 



FORWARD MARCH. 



in Egypt. What an evil day was it for him 

when he was tempted by Potiphar's wife! All 

how Evii Days the opportunities were favorable 

may be Made 

Good. for a great transgression. But 

who would think of pitying Joseph when the 
one chance of resistance that day presented, he- 
roically improved as it was, made him one of 

the grandest char- 



acters in history, 
and exalted him 
at last to leader- 
ship in a great 
kingdom ? 

And those He- 
brew youths in 
Babylon, what an 
evil day it was for 
them when the 
great Nebuchadnezzar held out to them the fear- 
ful alternative of bowing down to idols or being 
cast into the fiery furnace ! Evil, because idol 
worship was so popular, and promised to be so 
profitable, and gave them the assurance of pres- 
ent ease and fame, while the death by fire must 
have seemed, in contrast, so unspeakably horri- 




The Trial. 



THE WEAPONS OF OUR WARFARE. 1 49 



ble and undesirable. B-ut O, that evil day, what 
a good day they made it, when, reckless of the 
consequences, and caring only to do right, they 
threw back into the teeth of the king the heroic 
reply: "We will not serve thy gods, nor wor- 
ship the golden image which thou hast set up!" 
So, my young friends, may it be in your 
cases. The evil 
days will come, 
the tempter will 
assail, the world 
will ply you with 
its allurements, 
and your own 
hearts even, being 
naturally corrupt, 
may stand ready 
to betray you. 
Nevertheless, to you, certainly as to those who 
have gone before you, may every evil day be 

transformed into a good day — a snatching Hon- 
or from the Jaws 

day of holy decision, a day of tri- of Danger. 
umph and of glory, and a day, perchance, which 
may mean for you an eternal triumph ; for while 
every defeat weakens us, every victory, thanks 




The Triumph. 



150 FORWARD MARCH. 

be to God, makes us the stronger; while a vic- 
tory under great difficulties, and with great odds 
against us, may possibly become, as scores of 
illustrious instances have attested, the deciding 
victory of a life-time. 

Thus we are to stand in life's conflict — to 
stand on all the days, and to withstand in the 
Putting on the ev ^ days. And the apostle tells us 
in the same connection how this 
may be done. To win in this great battle of 
life, we must put on, he says, the whole armor 
of God. And now, with his words to guide us, 
let us examine this equipment. Let us take it up 
piece by piece, and see of what its various parts 
consist, and what are the special uses and ex- 
cellences of each. 

We begin with the head-piece; and appro- 
priately so, for the head is the seat of conscious- 
ness. It is here that thought holds its empire. 
It is through the head that the senses operate 
and impressions are formed. A man's head is 
his judgment throne. There reason holds her 
mighty court, and there, in every normal mind, 
waiting the mandates of judgment and reason, 
sits that mightiest of earthly forces, the human 



THE WEAPONS OF OUR WARFARE. 



151 



will. We begin with the head. You are going 
into battle ; the head must be protected ; we put 
a helmet upon it; and let Paul tell us what kind 
of a helmet. 

Take the helmet of salvation, he says; and in 
another place he counsels us to take for a helmet 
the hope of salvation. What does he mean? 
Why, he means that 
we must advance to 
life's conflicts having 
our minds thoroughly 
imbued with the fact 
that we are saved ; 
that God has for- 
given our sins, that 
he has put us into 
friendly relations with 
himself; that he has made us his children and 
the heirs of his glorious estate. That is the 
first conviction we are to take with What our Hel . 
us into life's battle,— that we are met si ^ nifies - 
saved and know it ; that we know we have 
passed from death unto life ; that we know we 
are his; that we know we have a building of 
God reserved for us in heaven. Lacking such 




152 FORWARD MARCH. 

a conviction as this, we shall advance to life's 
conflicts uncertain as to the side we are on, and 
with no distinct apprehension of the source from 
which help may be obtained; and how poorly 
any soldier would fight under such circum- 
stances as those, it is not necessary for me to 
remind you. 

To do his best on the battle-field, a man 

should know that he has a good cause. He 

vaior in Battle- should see clearly the object to be 

How to Secure it. gained< y^ must ^^ ^ 

also, if you would have him do his very best, 
that he fights under the leadership of one who 
is personally interested in him. x\nd of all these 
things must these young people be assured as 
they advance to the battle of life. Hence the 
necessity for this helmet of salvation, which 
means really the distinct consciousness of sal- 
vation. 

Then, the Grecian helmet usually had a de- 
vice upon its crest, something which stood for a 
cherished principle ; and upon our helmet God 
has put a device representing the precious and 
invincible principle of hope. For a helmet, 
says the apostle, take, not only the consciousness 



THE WEAPONS OF OUR WARFARE. 153 

of present salvation, but the certain hope of fu- 
ture salvation. 

Ah ! the Christian soldier has something to 
look forward to, as every soldier must have who 
is expected to display valor and endure hardships. 

It is evening on the tented field, and the 
general in charge, as many a commander has 
done under such circumstances, stirring Address 

of a Wise General 

musters his troops for a brief ad- to his Troops. 
dress. u To-morrow at daybreak/' he says, "we 
shall attack the enemy." Is that all? No, he 
speaks again: "Let every soldier do his duty." 
Is that all? No, he still speaks: "Every val- 
iant soldier shall have a reward." Nor is that 
all, for he speaks once more: "Let every man do 
his best, and we shall have the victory." Xow 
listen to the deafening cheers and the wild hur- 
rahs that are raised. What do these mean, does 
some one ask? Why, they mean that those 
hopeful words from the lips of a trusted com- 
mander have inspired the men with new strength 
and with a large increase of courage. 

Now change the scene. It is not evening, 
but morning, on the battle-field of life. Drawn 
up in hostile array are a great host of young 



154 FORWARD MARCH. 

people. Their commander speaks to them. As 
in the other case, he first urges us to do our 
duty; then he reminds us of the recompense of 
duty done ; and finally he speaks of the victory 
that awaits us. Notice, too, how emphatic is 
his language. " He that endure th shall be 
saved." He is saved and he shall be saved, day 
by day and hour by hour, until he is finally and 
eternally saved. That, in substance, is the lan- 
guage in which our Commander speaks, and 
we know that what he promises he will per- 
form ; and this hope, this assurance of final tri- 
umph, is what we are counseled to put on as a 
helmet. 

It is by this that the mind is to be preserved 

from discouragement. It is this which is to 

a sure Antidote make us strong when we are weak, 

to Discourage- 
ment, confident when we meet with re- 
verses, and rich when, in a worldly sense, we 
are miserably poor. And let me assure you, my 
young friends, that the man who puts on this 
helmet which Paul offers will indeed be rich, 
though he have nothing ; for he will feel in the 
direst extremities as did that Christian woman, 
who, though reduced to her last crust, declared 



THE WEAPONS OF OUR WARFARE. 1 55 

that even that, with Christ and the hope of 
heaven thrown in, was too much. 

Prior to his campaigns in Persia, Alexander 
the Great, it is said, distributed the whole of his 
possessions amongst his friends, and when some 
one asked him what he had reserved for him- 
self, he replied that he had kept for himself the 
very best of all the things he ever had, which 
were his hopes. So with those who put on this 
helmet of salvation. Everything else may go, 
but the best will remain, for they will still have 
the assurance of their sonship with God, and 
may still exult in their hope of heaven. 

Now let us look to the heart. This is the 

seat of life. Out of the heart are the issues of 

life. For our thoughts we are not E vii Thoughts- 
Two Methods of 

always responsible. They come Treating them, 
unbidden in many cases, and sometimes bad 
thoughts come to the very best of us. These, 
however, are sinful only when they are cher- 
ished. Afforded no encouragement, these bad 
thoughts will leave you as quickly and mysteri- 
ously as they came. To take a shot-gun to 
birds which stray upon your premises, and to 
build nests for these feathered intruders, are 



156 FORWARD MARCH. 

two different courses of procedure altogether, 
and inevitably there will be a vast difference in 
the results in the two cases. Under the shot- 
gun policy the birds are sure to take a speedy 
departure, while under the other form of treat- 
ment you may naturally expect them to favor 
you with their presence to the end of the season. 
And O, the many who build nests in their hearts 
for the nursing and nourishing of evil thoughts ! 
Let it be remembered, however, that in all such 
cases we become accessory to such thoughts, and 
that, according to the teaching of Christ, we are 
as really guilty in God's sight when the wicked 
purpose has been formed, as when the wicked 
act has been done. Out of the heart are the 
issues of life ; not out of the mind, nor out of the 
lip, nor out of the conduct, but out of the heart. 
Inevitably, therefore, is the heart the chief 
point of Satanic assault. It is the key to the 

The Breastplate whole situation ; hence the urgent 
of Righteousness. and paramount necessity of pro- 
tecting it. And so let us put a breastplate upon 
you, something which will render this center of 
spiritual life invulnerable. The apostle tells us 
that this breastplate must be a breastplate of 



THE WEAPONS OF OUR WARFARE. 157 

righteousness, and what he means is that, as the 
best and only protection against that which is 
evil, your hearts must be filled, possessed, and 
absorbed by that which is good. Three things 
are involved in the righteousness of the heart. 
First, our justification — that act of God's free 
grace by which, for the sake of Christ, he freely 
forgives all our sins and accepts us as righteous 
in his sight ; secondly, a fervent, whole-souled, 
and unswerving attachment to righteous prin- 
ciples ; and thirdly, such sturdy heart-righteous- 
ness as shall not fail to make the life righteous, 
right principles so working within us as to indi- 
cate clearly on the outside, as the face of a clock 
does, what time of day it is; that, too, not ac- 
cording to the railroad standard of convenience, 
but what time of day it is according to the un- 
erring movements of the Sun of righteousness. 
This is what the apostle means by putting 
on righteousness as a breastplate ; and let me 
tell you, my young friends, that one thus forti- 
fied shall be more secure than even the world- 
famed fortress of Gibraltar is reputed to be, and 
as absolutely invincible to all assaults from 
without as was ancient Troy,— falling at last, as 



158 



FORWARD MARCH. 



that city did, if fall he shall, only because in 
some evil moment one of the gates shall be 
opened, one of his good principles relaxed, and 
some enemy be thus admitted who shall com- 
pass his destruction from within. So that, as- 
piring to be perfectly secure in life's battle, 
your constant supplication should be, " Create 
in me a clean heart, O God, 
and renew a right spirit 
within me." 

Head and heart pro- 
tected, what now? Why, 
now pull on the greaves, 
the brazen boots ; or, as the 
= k* apostle says, Get your feet 
shod with the preparation 
of the gospel of peace. In ancient warfare 
these brazen boots were exceedingly important, 
were indispensable. The 
were bad in those days, 
dreadfully bad. Often, too, the soldier had to 
tramp out his own path as he advanced, the 
foot of mortal never having trodden the- partic- 
ular stretch of territory over which his march 
lay until that time. Occasionally, moroever, 




Greek Warrior. 



Guarding the TheV 
Steps — Why and 

How ? roads 



THE WEAPONS OF OUR WARFARE. 159 

traps were set for him, as men now set traps 
for wild beasts, and only for the protection af- 
forded by these brazen boots, he would have 
been defeated often ere the real battle had com- 
menced. 

And is it not precisely the same in the 
march upon which these young people have 
entered? Is not the road of life a hard road 
to travel? i\re there not many rocks and thorns 
in it? Is it not also, in a very important sense, 
a new road? Millions have traversed it before 
us ; yet, practically, every man who marches, 
through life has to carve out his own course, 
and if special care be not taken, each succeed- 
ing traveler will tread upon the same pitfalls, 
and bruise his feet against the identical rocks 
that have obstructed the progress of pilgrim 
warriors since the world began. Hence the 
necessity of being shod in the particular manner 
suggested by the apostle, namely, with the 
preparation of the gospel of peace. 

Notice now the uses of this moral foot-gear. 
The gospel affords light, and the T heUsesofGos- 
man whose feet are shod with the pel Foot -e ear - 
gospel has light precisely where he most needs 



1 60 FOR WARD MARCH. 

it, upon the path in which he is walking; clear 
light, which must of necessity make his path 
plain — a blazing luminary, which, like the head- 
light of the locomotive, shows him distinctly 
what obstacles are in his way, and shows him 
these so far ahead as to enable him to .meet 
them without danger. 

Another happy fact about the gospel is that 
it prepares us for life's emergencies. Those evil 
days of which we have spoken — they are sure to 
come, and if we are not ready for them, are cer- 
tain to prove days of disaster to us. When, 
however, our feet shall have been shod with the 
preparation of the gospel, which means a pres- 
ent salvation and an ever-present Christ, we 
shall be ready for these evil days, and hence we 
shall be safe, every evil day being surely trans- 
formed into a good day. 

This gospel, moreover, is declared by the 
apostle to be the gospel of peace; and that 
means that if we are shod with the 
gospel we shall be men of peace, 
notwithstanding that, in one sense, we are men 
of war; for in that case we shall be fighting for 
peace, fighting to introduce and maintain peace, 



An Interesting 
Paradox. 



THE WEAPONS OF OUR WARFARE. 161 

fighting under the banner of the Prince of Peace, 
and fighting, too, in such a way that even in the 
thickest of the conflict we shall have the expe- 
rience of peace — sweet, unbroken, and heavenly 
peace — in our own hearts. All this when our 
feet have been shod with the preparation of the 
gospel of peace ; or, in other words — for this is 
exactly what is meant — when we have obeyed 
the gospel, and are living in the daily enjoyment 
of the grace it affords. 

The next thing necessary is to brace the dif- 
ferent parts of your armor together. For this 
purpose a girdle is offered to us. Every soldier in 
Paul's day wore a girdle, and it is the apostle's 
evident conviction that every soldier in the bat- 
tle of life should wear one. He tells us, too, of 
what this girdle should consist. " Having your 
loins girt about with truth." 

What is truth, you ask ? What is truth ? 
was the question originally asked by Pilate. 
What is truth ? a minister once asked, and then, 
taking from his pocket a copy of the New Tes- 
tament, and holding it up, he said: " My friends, 
this is Truth." 

But Paul's idea in advising us to have our 

14 



1 62 FORWARD MARCH. 

loins girt with truth, was that we should not 

merely hold to the truth as it is revealed in the 

Moral security- Book of Truth, but that we should 

How Obtained. make Qm ^^ ^ em b dimeilt of 

truth, and that, thus, that to which we hold should 
hojd us, by keeping our defenses perfect and by 
making our hearts strong. Anything false 
about us means just that much of weakness. 
We can be fully secure only when we are en- 
tirely sincere. God help us to remember this ! 

It is said that upon entering the home of 
Tennyson you see the motto, inlaid into the 
pavement of the reception hall, " Truth against 
the world;" a sentiment which ought by right 
to be the watchword of every poet, of every 
Christian, of every man and woman, and one 
which we especially urge as a worthy life-motto 
for all these young people. 

And now, with helmet, breastplate, greaves, 
and girdle on, what next? 

Now we offer you a shield. To the Greek 
his shield was everything. By the skillful use 
of this weapon of defense, one could hold his own 
at close quarters against a score. It was usu- 
ally oblong in shape, and so large, as a general 



THE WEAPONS OF OUR WARFARE. 163 

thing, that when the soldier stooped to a kneel- 
ing postnre it covered his entire body. History 
attests that Greek shields have turned the tide 
of many a battle, while there have also been in- 
stances in which, when used as a float, they have 
saved their valiant possessors from drowning. 

This is what the Greek shield meant to those 
carrying it. How important is the shield which 
we are to bear, we may readily The Shield we 
infer from the simple declaration, are t0 Carry ' 
made by an inspired apostle, that it will " quench 
all the fiery darts of the wicked." 

Fiery darts — to what does the apostle refer 
in this expression? Possibly to those darts 
which were tipped with combustibles, and which 
were especially to be dreaded because, as they 
passed through the air, this combustible tip ig- 
nited. Or, possibly, he had reference to arrows 
which were dipped in poison, and which were 
appropriately designated by the term fiery, be- 
cause when they struck the flesh, they inflamed 
it and produced a burning sensation, as ^certain 
serpents were called fiery serpents, because their 
bite produced these effects. 

It is immaterial, however, from what source 



164 FORWARD MARCH. 

this figure was drawn : that which concerns 
these young people is the striking appositeness 
of the allusion ; for who does not know from 
experience that Satan's darts are fiery? Ah! 
his arrows do indeed burn us. They inflame 
our passions in some cases, until, as James says, 
they almost produce the very burning of per- 
dition within us. These darts, however, we 
may escape ; we may turn back to their dia- 
bolic source every one of them, passing through 
a perfect hail of poisoned arrows without a 
scratch or a taint. 

How shall we do it, do you ask? Why, by 
stooping to our knees and by covering ourselves 
completely with this omnipotent shield, the 
shield of faith. 

Yes, this is the victory that overcometh, even 

our faith ; for when faith is in perfect exercise, 

How to Resist when we really believe that we are 

Temptation. ^ cllildren Q f Q Q ^ an( J have 

God for our helper and the fullness of his glory 
for ous eternal recompense, who of us would be 
so foolish as to yield to temptation ? In that case 
Satan, when he comes, finds us perfectly pro- 
tected. Our shield is up, presenting a front 



THE WEAPONS OF OUR WARFARE. 1 65 

broader and stronger than even the mighty five- 
plated shield of Achilles ; whereas, when faith 
is weak and the verities of the world to come 
are but indistinctly apprehended, our shield is 
down, or, if it be not down, is defective and 
comparatively useless. Hence the striking per- 
tinency of Christ's words to Peter — words which 
he might utter, too, with equal truth concerning 
every one of these young people: "Satan hath 
desired to have thee, that he might sift thee as 
wheat ; but I have prayed for 
thee, that thy faith fail not." 

Equipped thus with weap- 
ons of defense, take now the 

"Try "This 

weapons of assault which are ^-^- 

offered. They are few, but mightily effective. 
Here is a sword provided. It is trusty and 
strong; it has won more battles T heBestwea P - 
than all the other weapons in the oninthe Universe - 
universe. Different this from the swords with 
which, on one occasion, the English went out to 
do battle against the French, when, at the first 
blow every sword bent double because the metal 
was defective, — different from these swords is 
that we offer to von. Damascus blade was 




1 66 FORWARD MARCH. 

never better tempered. It flashes like trie light- 
ning, and cnts so finely that it lays open the 
thoughts and intents of the heart. A mighty 
sword it is; and yet a child could wield it 
against a giant, and with it one could chase a 
thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight. 

It was this weapon for which, it is said, the 

child king of England, Edward VI, called, at 

significant Con- his coronation, when he said : 

duct of Two En- 
glish Rulers.. " Bring me another sword." They 

had brought him three already, as was their 
custom ; but these did not suffice. " Bring me 
another," he said, " the sword of the Spirit, 
which is the Word of God ;" and this was done, 
the Word of God having had a part in the coro- 
nation ceremonies of Great Britain ever since. 
This, too, was what Britain's present ruler held 
out, when asked by that African prince for the 
secret of England's greatness. No sword of 
Wellington or Nelson did she hold forth ; but in 
her queenly hand she took this sword and said : 
" This is the secret of England's greatness, and 
this is England's glory." 

This same sword, my young friends, does the 
apostle hold out to those who would win great- 



THE WEAPONS OF OUR WARFARE. 1 67 

ness and glory in the battle of life. And for 
beating back the blandishments of the world, 
for bringing the flesh into subjection, and for 
putting the arch-fiend of the pit to flight, where 
is there any weapon to match this sword ? That 
the Bible is indeed the best weapon with which 
to fight the devil, is taught in the most practical 
manner by our Savior, for it was 
with this that he won his personal 
triumph over Satan. If, however, 
we would use this sword as effect- 
ually as he did, it goes without 
the saying that we must be familiar 
with it as he was, must be able to quote it, 
must love it, must believe it, and must rely 
upon it. 

And now, what else? Why, then we must 
pray; and that our praying may be timely and 
effectual, we must watch. This Necessity of 

Watchfulness and 

admonition to watch and pray Prayer. 
came originally from the lips of the God-man; 
and how significant that he should have uttered 
it during the ordeal of Gethsemane, when his 
concern for humanity was so intense that his 
sweat became as great drops of blood. Notice, 




1 68 FOR WARD MARCH. 

too, how expressive is Paul's language. " Pray- 
ing always," he says, "with all prayer and sup- 
plication, and watching thereunto with all per- 
severance." 

Of the Christian warrior, furnished with 
every other requisite, but lacking that which is 
now urged, James Montgomery says : 

Undaunted to the field he goes ; 

But vain were skill and valor there, 
Unless, to foil his legion foes, 

He takes this trustiest weapon, prayer. 

What school-boy has not read of the battle 

of Hastings, that desperate struggle in which 

how a Memo- William the Conqueror wrested the 

rable Battle was 

won. scepter of England from the hand 

of King Harold? And how was this battle 
won? By fighting, you say. Yes, and by 
prayer, many others affirm ; for while the Sax- 
ons, who were worsted, spent the previous night 
in drunken orgies, the Normans, who were vic- 
torious, as all historians tell us, occupied the 
time in confession of their sins, and in suppli- 
cating the favor of God. 

How much prayer had to do with the result 
in that case, we can not tell; but that it is 



THE WEAPONS OF OUR WARFARE. 1 69 



necessary to victory in this battle of life, is be- 
yond question. And the apostle tells us that if 
we would be absolutely sure of winning a great 
victory, we must pray always with all prayer, 
with all supplication, w T ith all watchfulness, and 
with all perseverance. 

Here, then, my young friends, are the weapons 
of your warfare. God help you 
to seize and use them ! 

And so, fully equipped, we 
send you forth. On your head is 
the helmet of salvation — in your 
head the consciousness of salva- 
tion. Over your heart is the 
breastplate of righteousness — in 
your heart the experience of 
righteousness. On your feet the 
sandals of gospel peace — in your 
feet the principle of gospel obedience. About 
your loins the girdle of truth — in your soul 
a supreme love for truth. One what it Means to 

be Fully Equipped 

hand grasps the shield of faith ; for Life's Battle, 
the other wields the sword of the Spirit, which 
is the Word of God. Your eyes are illumined 
with the fires of watchfulness, and out of your 




170 FORWARD MARCH. 

lips proceed unceasing prayers. Thus equipped, 
as we pray God you all may be, we send you 
forth. The benediction of heaven is upon you ; 
Christ is with you; victory is before you. And 
so we send you out into life's great battle, de- 
taining you only whilst we bid you Godspeed, 
and whilst we remind you once more, as we did 
at the beginning, that it is alike your duty and 
your destiny to stand — to withstand in the evil 
day, and having done all, to stand. 




A KNIGHT OF THE CROSS. 



170 



:►♦«£ 



VII. 

Qualities of a Good Soldier. 



>♦<«: 



CONTENTS. 



ADVICE of a Veteran to Young Recruits— The 
Universal Desire of Young People—" Plenty of 
Room at the Top"— The Highest Form of Excel- 
lence — Striking Contrast between Two Kinds of 
Fame — Paramount Requirement of the Good Sol- 
dier—The Divine Methods of Recruiting— Hardships 
and Sacrifices of Army Life — Sublime Instances of 
Youthful Heroism— Life's Greatest Battle-field, 
where is it? — Appeal of Pizarro to the Castilians — 
Facts to be remembered when Choice is exercised — 
The Soldier's- First Lesson — Consequences of Fail- 
ure in Life's Battle— The Only Path leading to 
Happiness— Nature and Effects of True Courage — 
The Quality we most need— Analysis of the Courage 
of Luther — The Martyrs and the Great Martyr- 
How to fit Ourselves for Hazardous Duties — Hero- 
ism on the Field of Battle — An Old Adage improved 
upon— Why Some People get on in the World— The 
Sad Consequences of not having Grit and Grip — The 
Strong Pull not Enough — Characteristic Remark of 
Abraham Lincoln — Great Lesson taught by a Great 
General. 
172 



^K, «^T\* VTs. ^Ts. .•Tn* ^TS* ^tn* ^Ts. •Tx. *^s* •p* ^TNi •Ts, */Ts» .•Ts. ^Js. 



VII. 



QUALITIES OF A GOOD SOLDIER. 




;°s> 



F one who has seen long service, and has 
distinguished himself on many a hard- 



^ fought field, is entitled to respectful at- 
tention when he undertakes to advise those 
who are just entering the ranks, then, beyond 
a question, is the veteran Paul entitled to the 
most profound respect in the counsels he of- 
fers to the youthful Timothy. Not only was 
it wise for Timothy to regard these counsels, 
but it will be equally the part of wisdom for the 
young people of the present day to give heed to 
them ; for greatly as the times have changed 
since these words were first uttered, they have 
not changed to such an extent as to excuse any 
of us from trying to be good, nor in such a way 

173 



174 FORWARD MARCH. 

as to exempt any who would be good from the 
necessity of fighting. 

The special exhortation which we bring to 

you at this time from one so admirably qualified 

Advice of a Vet- to give advice to those just starting 

eran to Young Re-^ 

cruits. in life, is that which calls upon 

Timothy to " endure hardness as a good soldier 
of Jesus Christ ;" and the first thought we would 
urge, is that you must be soldiers of Jesus Christ. 
We have urged this before. There is not a 
chapter in this book which has not pointed to 
this duty; nor is there a fact in your lives which 
does not make this duty a necessity. You can 
exist without religion ; but to so exist as to tri- 
umph in life, and to so triumph in life as to 
make death and eternity triumphant, that is ut- 
terly impossible. 

Yet no soldier likes to be beaten. James the 

Second, of England, said, after a certain defeat 

The universal of his forces, that he was glad it 

Desire of Young 

People. had happened, because, no doubt, 

it was the will of God; but we are inclined to 
think that James, in that instance, was some- 
thing of a hypocrite. No soldier likes to be 
beaten. All who fight are anxious to win. 



QUALITIES OF A GOOD SOLDIER. 1 75 

This, most assuredly, is the ambition of these 
young people regarding the battle of life, and it 
is the one thing for which you are all hoping 
and striving. That your hopes, however, may 
not prove delusive, and that your efforts may 
not be in vain, suffer us to remind you again 
that there is but one equipment which can carry 
you through life's conflict unscathed, and that 
is the armor which God supplies ; but one ban- 
ner that can lead you to certain victory, and that 
is the blood-stained banner of the cross ; but one 
Commander who can bring you off more than 
conquerors, and that is Jesus. Hence the ne- 
cessity of the course to which we are now urging 
you, and to which we have so often urged you 
before, — the imperative necessity of following 
Jesus and of enlisting in his cause without delay. 
Being soldiers, then be sure that you are 
good soldiers. A desire to excel should charac- 
terize your efforts in every depart- .. PlentyofRoom 
ment of life. Whatever your trade at the Top -" 
or profession, the principle governing you should 
be that what is worth doing at all is worth doing 
well. Is a business life your choice ? Then be 
upright, be diligent, and plan, within honorable 



176 FORWARD MARCH. 

limits, for the largest possible success. Is trie 
law your chosen vocation? Then go into it with 
the determination to adorn it, remembering 
Daniel Webster's saying, which is applicable at 
once to the legal profession and to all others, 
that "there 's plenty of room at the top." 

Above all, though, should you strive to excel 

as a soldier of Jesus Christ ; for the service of 

The Highest God is not a secondary affair; it is 

Form of Excel- 
lence, the chief business of your lives. 

Better be a good Christian, better rise in this 
vocation than in any (5ther. It would pay you, 
indeed, and would be your duty, to seek excel- 
lence as a Christian, even though your efforts in 
this direction — if such a thing were conceiv- 
able — should make success in other lines an im- 
possibility ; for your qualities and attainments 
as a soldier of Christ are the real test-points of 
both character and destiny, success which does 
not include excellence of this description being 
but another word for failure, and so-called fail- 
ure which does include it, one of the grandest 
of successes. 

Prosperity in temporal affairs is very uncer- 
tain, and at the best can be enjoyed but for a 



QUALITIES OF A GOOD SOLDIER. 177 

short time. You must part from it at death, if 
not before; and in how many instances, owing 
to the shifting currents and changeful tides pre- 
vailing upon life's ocean, are our temporal pos- 
sessions carried away from us, leaving us dis- 
mantled and lonely and ruined, like a dismantled 
hulk in some great waste of waters, even while 
we are still living; and possibly, too, just at the 
time when such supports are most needed to 
render life endurable ! 

But with the good part we acquire as Chris- 
tians, it is altogether different. That, we are 

assured, shall never be taken away striking con- 
trast Between two 

from us. Other fame is but a pass- Kinds of Fame. 
ing show; a change of circumstances may spoil 
it utterly, and human caprice transform what 
had seemed to be a triumph into an awful mock- 
ery. But the fame acquired by the man who 
distinguishes himself for valiant service in the 
army of Christ will be as durable as the eter- 
nities, surviving alike the wreck of death and 
the crash of worlds ; for 

As 'mid the ever-rolling sea, 
The eternal isles established be, 
So, through the ocean tide of years, 
The memory of the just appears. 



178 FORWARD MARCH. 

As in the sky the urns divine 

Of golden light forever shine, 

So, through the tempest and the gloom, 

The good man's virtues light the tomb. 

If, then, it be so important that we be, not 
only soldiers, but good soldiers, in this army, 
what better can we do than offer now, for your 
earnest consideration, a brief summary of the 
qualities of such soldiers? 

From the authority already cited we learn 

that the paramount requirement of those who 

Paramount Re- would be good soldiers of Jesus 

quirement of the 

Good soldier. Christ, is that they be prepared to 
endure hardness. This strikes at the root of 
the matter. It brings us to the test imme- 
diately, just as God puts us to an immediate 
test when we present ourselves for enrollment 
as those who desire to serve him. He resorts to 
no deception at this crisis, nor does he indulge 
in any flattery. He paints no pleasing picture 
before us merely for the sake of getting us com- 
mitted. Some governments, in recruiting men 
for military service, are highly culpable for the 
course they pursue in this respect. They set 
forth only the agreeable features of army life, and 
they grossly exaggerate even this one-sided view. 



QUALITIES OF A GOOD SOLDIER. 179 

But Christ, in seeking recruits, pursues a 
different course altogether. The first picture 
he draws is a somber and rather Divine Methods 
forbidding one. Instead of empha- of Recruitin ^- 
sizing the pleasures and rewards of his service, 
he thrusts upon our notice at the beginning 
those aspects of the Christian life which appeal 
to the heroic within us. His invitation is in 
the nature of a challenge, what he says being, 
"If any man will be my disciple, let him deny 
himself and take up his cross." 

This requirement meets us at the very 
threshold of his service. It follows us, too, in 
every succeeding step until the end is reached ; 
for according to both our Lord's teaching and 
that of his apostles, the soldier of Christ must 
always deny himself, he must take up his cross 
daily, and must be prepared, as a good soldier, 
to endure hardness to the very end. 

This is so of necessity, from the fact of his 
life being essentially a militant one. What else 
could be expected by one enlisting Hardships and 

Sacrifices of Army 

as a soldier? Is it not a matter Life. 

of common understanding that every military 

recruit has many things to give up ? Is he not 



180 FORWARD MARCH. 

compelled to forego trie comforts of the home 
circle ? Must he not bid adieu to pleasant com- 
panionships ? Does he not relinquish in some 
cases the occupation which has brought him, 
perchance, a good support in life ? Does he not 
exchange the quiet of a secure dwelling for such 
rest as can be snatched in tents or upon the 
hard ground, with only a stone for a pillow, and 
with no canopy above him but the overarching 
heavens? Must not daily intercourse with 
friends give place in his life to rough and deadly 
conflict with foes ; and are not the piping times 
of peace, as Shakespeare says, succeeded in his 
experience by the stern alarms, the dreadful 
marches, and the wrinkled front of grim-visaged 
war ? And if ordinary soldiering means all this, 
is it not inevitable that to be a soldier of Jesus 
Christ will entail similar hardships? 

There have been instances in which young 

men, in order to be Christians, have been 

sublime in- under the necessity of leaving 

stances of Youth- 
ful Heroism, home; and, thank God, there have 

been those who, when this necessity has arisen, 

have had the moral hardihood to meet it. The 

alternative being presented of giving up the 



QUALITIES OF A GOOD SOLDIER. 181 

Church or of giving up the family hearthstone, 
these youthful heroes have dared, for Christ's 
sake, to pack up their little store of worldly 
goods, and go out, to take refuge, as Luther 
said, " under the shield of heaven," and to learn 
from experience, too; how grandly true it is, as 
David declared, that when father and mother 
forsake us, then the Lord will take us up. 

Of course, though, such cases as these are 
very exceptional. But to have to break with 
boon companions, because their influence would 
be a constant temptation to us — to have to do 
this upon entering Christ's army — is not excep- 
tional, but is something which is necessary in 
the majority of cases. Occasionally, too, men 
have to leave a profitable employment for the 
same reason. It pays well, but it is injurious to 
their fellow-men, or it requires them to violate 
some law of God, or it places them in danger 
from evil associations; hence it must be given 
up, for they are soldiers now, and, as Paul says, 
" No soldier entangleth himself with the affairs 
of this life;" and most certainly should no Chris- 
tian soldier so entangle himself, if the alliance 
place his soul in jeopardy. 



182 FORWARD MARCH. 

That, however, which we wish to especially 
emphasize, is the inward struggle of the Chris- 
Life's Great- tian soldier, the necessity he is 

est Battle-field— 

where is it? under of crucifying constantly the 
lusts of the flesh, of keeping the thoughts and 
desires in subjection, and of bringing his own 
will into harmony with the will of God. Here 
is the direction in which self-denial is most 
necessary, — here, in fact, is where it must always 
begin, and where, too, it must have its unre- 
mitting and triumphant continuance ; for the 
great battle-field, after all, is in these hearts of 
ours, and it is there, really, that the final issue 
is determined. As Longfellow says, 

Not in the clamor of the busy street, 
But in ourselves, is victory or defeat. 

Is there then, you ask, no bright side to 
life's battle ? Has the Christian soldier nothing 
that is cheering to hold in prospect? Is it, in 
his case, all struggle and self-denial and hard- 
ness and sacrifice? Ah ! you would not ask such 
a question as that did you only recollect how 
abundantly in the promises of Christ every 
hardship is counterbalanced by a corresponding 
blessing. It is true he requires us to deny 



QUALITIES OF A GOOD SOLDIER. 183 

ourselves; true also that he has declared, "He 
that saveth his life shall lose it," and that "He 
who loveth father or mother more than me, is 
not worthy of me." But does he not also say 
in substance, that there is no man that hath 
left father or mother, or wife or children, or 
houses or land, for his sake and the gospel's, 
who shall not receive a hundred-fold in this 
world, and in the world to come, life ever- 
lasting ? 

Thus, Pizarro-like, Christ appeals to the 
heroic, to the love of conquest, and to the de- 
sire for glory, which is within us. Appeal of Pi- 

zarro to the Cas- 

Pizarro's men, we are told, had be- tiiians. 
come dissatisfied. He was bound for Peru ; they 
demanded to be taken to Panama. Gathering 
them around him, and drawing a line in the 
sand with his sword, he said: "Comrades, on 
that side," pointing to the south, " are toil, 
hunger, nakedness, the drenching storm, battle, 
and death; on this side," pointing to the north, 
"are ease and safety." "But," he added, "to 
the south lies Peru, with its wealth ; to the 
north Panama and its poverty. Choose now," 
he said, " what best becomes a brave Castilian. 



184 FORWARD MARCH. 

For my part," he added, "I go to the South." 
So, only in a far better cause, and in words 
which appeal far more powerfully to that which is 



noble within us, does our Leader speak. Choose 
you, he says, whom ye will serve, and in what 
direction your march shall lie. The world offers 
you ease, attended by spiritual poverty ; I offer 



QUALITIES OF A GOOD SOLDIER. 185 

you hardship, which, however, shall surely lead 
in the end to incalculable riches. Choose, 
therefore, he says, which of these two courses 
best becomes an immortal being. 

So speaks the peerless Leader who is bidding 
for our allegiance. Such is the alternative 
which, Pizarro-like, he places be- Facts t0 be Re . 

r ,i 1 • , membered when 

fore these young people, just as Choice is Exer . 
they are about to take ship for the Clsed - 
port of their eternal destination ; and we ask 
you, in His name — those at least who have not 
done so already — to form your decision here and 
now, and to be sure that it is a wise decision, a 
noble decision; remembering, as you make it, 
that the world, though it promises ease, does not 
confer it, and is not able to do so, all experience 
proving that a life of self-indulgence is a life of 
wretchedness, and that the way of the trans- 
gressor is a hard way; but that, on the other 
hand, the service of God, notwithstanding that 
it necessitates self-denial, and calls for the en- 
durance of hardship, is still, not only a grand 
service, from the fact that it develops heroism 
and makes grand men and women of us, but is 

emphatically a service of freedom, a profitable 

16 



1 86 FORWARD MARCH. 

service, paying well both in this life and in that 
which is to come — a blessed and delightful serv- 
ice, which exacts sacrifices only that it may con- 
fer peace, and imposes crosses, only as a pre- 
liminary to the bestowment of crowns, and 
requires us to walk in paths where thorns 
abound, only that our senses may be regaled by 
the beauty and fragrance of the sweet roses which 
also abound there, and precipitates us into 
trouble and conflict, only for the sake of attest- 
ing to our consciousness how very delightful it 
is to have the cheer and sustaining grace of an 
ever-present and all-sufficient Deliverer, the ex- 
perience, under hardship, of every good soldier of 
Jesus Christ being, as one has so beautifully said : 

"It is the IyOrd!" Sad soul, whate'er the burden 

That presseth sorely now, 
Whate'er the thunder-cloud which hangs its shadow 

Athwart thy storm-clad brow, 
Fear not! No sorrow but- to gladness tendeth, 

If faith's expectant eye be upward cast; 
The darkest cloud some subtle glory lendeth, 

And breaketh into blessing at the last. 
Soon shall thy heart in rapture be outpoured, 
And thou shalt testify, " It is the Lord." 

Bearing in mind, then, that the basal quality 
of a good soldier is self-denial, let us now 



QUALITIES OF A GOOD SOLDIER. 187 

glance at some other qualities which will readily 
occur to us. 

Every good soldier will be obedient. This 
is the first lesson the soldier must learn. Fail- 
ing at this point, punishment will TheSoldier , s 
be visited upon him. Such fail- First Lesson> 
ure, moreover, may be disastrous to others as 
well as to himself. It may imperil the issue 
of the battle ; it may change the destiny of a 
nation. 

Everything depends upon the soldier's obe- 
dience to orders. Occasionally, we are aware, 
advantages have come from disobedience ; as, for 
instance, at the battle of Missionary Ridge. 
But far more frequently does disaster follow such 
a course. Hence the usual attitude of those 
in command is to condemn and punish it, even 
though it may be vindicated in some sense by 
the results. Of all soldiers must it be said, as 
Tennyson said of the noble six hundred: 

Theirs not to reason why, 
Theirs not to make reply, 
Theirs but to do and die. 

Wellington, on one occasion, had commanded 
an officer to storm a certain position, and the 



1 88 FOR WARD MARCH. 

man said it was impossible. "I asked not," 
said the Iron Duke, "for your opinion; I gave 
the orders, and expect them to be obeyed." 

Not only is obedience indispensable to the 
well-being of the army, considered as a whole, 
but it is equally necessary to the comfort and 
welfare of the individual soldier; for it is only 
when such a man is obedient that he is free 
from reproach, free from inward condemnation 
and from the fear of punishment. 

And if obedience be necessary in ordinary 

warfare, how much more so in this battle of life ! 

consequences Think of the consequences of fail- 

of Failure in Life's 

Battle. ure in life's battle. Think how 

much we shall lose should this battle go against 
us. Think, too, what losers others may become 
through failure on our part ; for let me tell you, 
my young friends, that every wreck floating at 
random on life's ocean imperils the safety of 
other ships, and that every recreant soldier in 
life's army betrays and jeopardizes, not himself 
alone, but the interests of his comrades, and 
the holy cause for which he has sworn to fight. 
In this battle, moreover, disobedience never 
leads to good; it is never justified by circum- 



QUALITIES OF A GOOD SOLDIER. 1 89 

stances ; it can never be vindicated by results. 
It is always evil, and it always leads to evil; 
for to disobey God is to forfeit the favor of God ; 
it is to incur guilt; it is to yield to the enemy. 




Far from ever helping us to victory, it is in 
itself a defeat. 

Here, too, even more certainly than in ordi- 
nary warfare, is the path of obedience the only 
path which can lead to happiness. The om y Path 

Leading to Hap- 

A fact to be ever remembered, is piness. 

that every human being is a birthright subject 

of the Divine Being. We can no more choose 



190 FORWARD MARCH. 

whether or not we will owe allegiance to God, 
than we can choose who onr parents shall be, 
or under what flag we shall come into existence. 
We are all as surely and as really born under 
the Government of heaven, as we are born 
under some particular earthly Government. 
What is more, we must remain under this Gov- 
ernment forever. Allegiance may be renounced 
in the one case ; but to throw off the allegiance 
we owe to God is impossible ; and just as no 
citizen of these United States can live a happy 
or comfortable life excepting as he shall obey 
the laws of his country, so is it equally futile, 
and even more so, for any of us to suppose that 
happiness can be realized, in any true and 
worthy sense, excepting as our conduct shall 
harmonize with those higher religious laws 
which, at the same time that they are revealed 
in the Bible, are enunciated with almost equal 
authority in the works of nature and in our 
own moral consciousness. 

In this matter we are allowed no option by 
either our Creator or our own interests. If we 
would make life a real success we absolutely 
must obey the orders of our Divine Captain. 



QUALITIES OF A GOOD SOLDIER. 19 1 

In other words, we must keep the Command- 
ments — must do the will of our Father in 
heaven. Otherwise we can never enter heaven, 
nor become the true followers of Him who came 
from heaven. 

Another requisite is courage. Sir Horace 
Vere put this necessity into one sententious re- 
mark, Uttered at a COUncil Of War. Nature and Ef- 
fects of True Cour- 

It was during his campaign in the age. 
Palatinate. The question under discussion 
was whether or not an attack should be made; 
and some one present observing that the enemy 
had many pieces of ordnance planted at a cer- 
tain place, and that therefore it would be dan- 
gerous to attack him, Sir Horace's reply was : 
" But, my lord, if you fear the mouth of a can- 
non, you must never come into the field." 

The question arises, however, what is cour- 
age, and what are its effects? Does it follow 
that where courage exists all fear will depart? 
By no means, for the truest and greatest courage 
is that which takes men forward into the jaws 
of danger in spite of fear. " You look pale," 
said a man to his brother officer, as they rode 
together in front of a thundering battery; "you 



192 FORWARD MARCH. 

look pale; you must be frightened." "I am," 
was the calm and noble response, "and if you 
were as afraid as I am, you would turn tail." 
Some of the bravest soldiers who ever faced an 
enemy have trembled when the lines were form- 
ing, and have blanched into an ashen pallor 
when the first gun was fired; yet they went on 
and did valiantly. Braver than others are these, 
because, though lacking in physical courage, 
this deficiency is more than made up by the 
rich endowment they have of that higher and 
rarer quality, moral courage. 

And let me tell you, my young friends, that 

such courage as this is the quality which is 

The Quality we needed beyond all others in the 

Most Need. " ^^ Q £ ]{f ^ Tq be wholly 

without fear is not desirable. A species of 
fear is enjoined upon us in the Word of God. 
We are to fear Him. We are to fear the dread 
possibility of failure which is before us. It is 
with fear and trembling that our salvation is 
to be wrought out. We should fear ourselves, 
also, lest in some moment of trial our treacher- 
ous nature betray us to the enemy; and, speak- 
ing of our foes, we may well hold these in 



QUALITIES OF A GOOD SOLDIER. 193 

dread, considering how numerous and powerful 
they are. Such fear as this is becoming in us; 
it is wholesome ; it is Scriptural ; it is necessary. 

Notwithstanding our timidity, however, we 
must still march forward, attesting our courage, 
as did that white-faced officer in the late war, not 
by the fact that it divests us of fear, but by the 
fact, which is far more creditable, that it nerves 
us to duty, and incites us to daring, and leads 
us to victory, in spite of fear. 

What great reformer ever threw himself full 
tilt against the rugged front of national preju- 
dice simply from the love of con- Analysis of Lu _ 
flict, or from the delight he felt in ther ' s Courage - 
danger? Was it so with Luther, does any one 
suppose ? What, then, was the meaning of those 
struggles with himself and of those memorable 
conflicts with Satan, when the fiend of the pit 
came so near and pressed so hard as to seem 
really incarnate to his senses? Ah! Luther, 
noble soul, adopted the course he did, and pur- 
sued it in the way he did, not at all because he 
was without fear — for he was not — but because 
the sense of fear was brought into subjection to 
his higher sense of duty. As he himself said, 

17 



1 94 FOR WARD MARCH. 

"Here I take my stand; I can do no other; 
God help me!" this fervent prayer for divine 
help constituting an expression at once of the 
fear he had of what might be the possible con- 
sequences of his course, and the confidence he 




I/uther at Fourteen. 

felt that, with God on his side, he should tri- 
umph at last, even though he might have to 
purchase his victory by a violent death. 

And the martyrs, moreover — who supposes 
that they were without fear, when the wild 



QUALITIES OF A GOOD SOLDIER. 195 

beasts rushed upon them, or the fagots crackled at 
their feet? Even the courage of our Lord himself 
partook of this element. Even he TheMartyrsand 
would have excused himself at the the Great Martyr ' 
last, but for the necessity that was laid upon 
him. What meant he else, when he prayed, 
" If it be possible, let this cup pass from me?" 
"Nevertheless," he added — and here is where 
his moral fortitude asserted itself — " neverthe- 
less, if it may not pass from me except I drink 
it, thy will be done." 

O, for such courage in these young people! 
You will need it again and again, and again and 
again will you fail if you are without how to fit our- 

selves for Hazard- 
it. Compromises, you must remem- ous Duties. 

ber, are not victories. You must stand up for the 
right at all hazards. Where Christ leads, you 
must follow ; where duty calls, you must always 
dare to go. How shall we be fitted to do this, 
does some one ask? Why, by having the cour- 
age of the ancient reformers, the courage of that 
noble army of martyrs, — such courage, in fact, 
as that which was displayed, in every struggle 
against evil and at every crisis in his wonderful 
career, by our Divine Eord himself. 



1 96 FOR WARD MARCH. 

Counterfeit courage will not do. Spasmodic 
courage will not answer. Mere bravado will 
conquer no enemies and win no respect. Self- 
confidence will always fail us; and as for mere 
brute courage — that may answer for a beast, and 
may serve the turn of a prize-fighter, who is 
little better than a beast; but in this fight for 
moral principles, in this battle which has been 
brought on by the desire of Almighty God 
to establish righteousness in the earth, noth- 
ing will answer save the highest form of moral 
courage, which we may define to be that in- 
stinct of the renewed soul which discerns the 
path of duty, and then, with a full apprecia- 
tion of all the difficulties and dangers, and in 
spite of these, steadily pursues that path ; never 
boasting, and yet never retreating ; always 
trembling, it may be, and yet never turning 
aside. 

Such courage had that dying soldier whose 
only wish at the last moment was that he might 
Heroism on the be so turned around as to make it 
Field of Battle. poss ibl e for him to die as he had 
fought, facing the enemy. Such courage, also, 
had that other soldier of whom we have read. 



QUALITIES OF A GOOD SOLDIER. 1 97 

He had been wounded in the late war, and his 
father reached the hospital just as the surgeons 
were taking the ball from the back of his shoul- 
der. "I am very sorry," said the old man, "but 
that's a bad place to be hit." "Yes it is," said 
the boy, as he rolled over in a spasm of vir- 
tuous indignation; "but, father," he said, point- 
ing to the front of his arm-pit, " the ball went 
in here." 

Such courage as this let these young people 
show in the battle of life — always presenting to 
the enemy a full breast and a clean breast, as, 
assuredly, if we do so, we shall always present 
one which will be rendered impervious to all 
assaults by the breastplate of righteousness; 
the result being that our Father, our Heavenly 
Father, whenever he shall come to us, shall find 
us neither in the hospital, wounded and de- 
feated, nor hidden away in any ditch of cow- 
ardice, but still on the field, still at the front, 
and crowned with the laurels of past victories, 
still carving our triumphant way in his strength 
to the grander victories of the future. 

This naturally suggests another indispensable 
quality of the good soldier — perseverance. The 



198 FORWARD MARCH. 

old saying is, that all things come to those who 

wait. Change this so as to make it declare that 

An oid Adage nearly all the good things of both 

Improved Upon. ^fife are possible to those who 

will persevere long enough in seeking them, 
and you have an important statement which 
does not at all exceed the limits of truth. If, 
too, you should turn it around, the converse of 
it would be equally true; for without perse- 
verance we need have no expectation of either 
acquiring much or being of much service to our 
fellow-creatures. 

The youth who gets a good education is the 

youth who does not tire of studying. The girl 

why some Peo- who accomplishes herself in music, 

pie get on in the 

world. or in any other of the fine arts, is 

the girl who wearies not under the drudgery 
which long practice imposes. The great painter, 
who finally bequeaths to the world an immortal 
master-piece, is he who, perchance, toiled for 
years without recompense, and whose success 
was due far less to his genius than to the tire- 
less industry he displayed. 

And the annals of trade tell the same story, 
and teach the same useful lesson. To be shiftless 



QUALITIES OF A GOOD SOLDIER. 199 

and spasmodic is to invite failure ; and almost 
always, when thus invited, does failure wait upon 
us ; while, as every one must admit, there is 
nothing which makes success quite so sure as to 
choose intelligently some congenial line of work, 
and then persevere in the patient doing of it. 

These observations apply, also, and with 
equal force, to moral and spiritual things. It 
is he only that endureth who shall be saved. 
To obtain the crown, we must be faithful unto 
death. To sit at last upon the promised throne 
of sovereignty and eternal dominion, we must 
overcome. If, however, we may trust the evi- 
dence of our senses, how many do not endure, 
how many are not faithful, how very many, in- 
stead of conquering the enemy, are themselves 
conquered ! 

Such as these you see one day with their 
armor all in place, their shield of faith lifted, and 
their sword glistening in the sun- The Sad Conse . 
light— beautiful, brave, formidable, *£*£ g! ™l 
and invincible they appear to be ; Gnp * 
and the next day armor and weapons have all 
gone, and the devil is leading them captive at his 
will. They make a brief stand, and then ensues an 



200 FORWARD MARCH. 

awful fall. They fight a few battles, and then, 
the enemy still pressing, they become discour- 
aged, and yield to him. A transitory courage they 
display, such as serves for a few dashes and 
spurts; but they lack the grit and grip which 
holds on and keeps at it ; and so, although they 
began a good work, they did not finish it. 

As others have met this fate, so may you 
meet it ; and hence our final admonition to you 

The strong Pun is to persevere. Remember, my 
not Enough. young friends, that in life's tug, as 

elsewhere, it is not only the strong pull, but the 
long pull, that carries you through. We are to 
withstand in the evil day, and then we are still 
to stand, and having done all, we are to stand. 
That which makes the Germans so superior in 
battle to the French, is that they know how 
to hold on so much better. 

It was this faculty of holding on which made 
Grant victorious. It was this same determination 
to never tire until triumphant which sustained 
the Government at Washington in the dark days 

characteristic of the Civil War. Mr. Lincoln was 

Remark of Abra- # 

ham Lincoln. asked if he thought the conflict 
would be finished during his administration. 



QUALITIES OF A GOOD SOLDIER. 201 

"I don't know, sir," was his reply, "I don't 
know." "What, then, is it your purpose to do?" 
the gentleman asked ; to which Lincoln made 
the characteristic and significant reply, " Peg 
away, sir, peg away;" a course, my young 
friends, which, as surely as it led to victory in 
that conflict, will lead you to victory, if you 
but pursue it, in this battle 
of life. 

Yes, here is your hope, 
and your only hope on the 
human side ; and here only is 
your salvation, both for this 
world and for that which is to 
come; namely, in persever- Lincoln. 

ance. One battle won, or even many battles — 
think not that then you have earned the right to 
rest, or conquered the privilege of security ; for 
the moment you relax in zeal, or cease to pray, or 
call in the scouts of vigilance, that moment your 
situation becomes perilous, for just then the en- 
emy is certain to appear. Always, in this battle 
of life, is there more to follow — more of bless- 
ing if you seek it; more of fighting whether 
you seek it or not. 




202 FORWARD MARCH. 

It is related of Sir Charles Napier, that in 

the course of a great battle an officer came to 

Great Lesson report that he had taken one of the 

Taught by a Great 

General. enemy's standards. Napier made 

no response. He was in conversation with an- 
other officer at the time. Thinking he had not 
been heard distinctly, the man repeated the in- 
telligence. " We have taken one of the enemy's 
standards," he said; at which, it is said, Sir 
Charles turned toward him, to simply observe, 
"Then take another." 

Has it been the good fortune of any of these 
young people to take one of the enemy's stand- 
ards ? If so, do not trouble to report it ; in any 
case, do not boast of it ; but take another, then 
another, and keep on in this pathway of conquest 
until the enemy's last standard shall have fallen 
before you, which can only be, let us admonish 
you, when the crisis of death has been safely 
passed, and when, as the result, the standard 
you yourself are carrying, from having flapped 
its triumphant folds over the last hill-top of 
earthly resistance, shall have been trans- 
planted by divine hands to wave in unending 
triumph, as the ensign of your final and eternal 



QUALITIES OF A GOOD SOLDIER. 203 

salvation, over the hill-tops of immortal glory. 
And so, 

Strive, endeavor ; it profits more 

To fight and fail, than on Time's dull shore 

To sit an idler ever ; 
For to him who bares his arm to the strife, 
Firm at his post in the battle of life, 
The victory faileth never. 
"Therefore in faith abide!" 
The earnest voice still cried ; 
"Abide thou, and endeavor." 



a^^\Vi^ 




THE VISION OF COXSTAXTINE. 



:►♦<* 



VIII. 

Thg Victory. 



205 



CONTENTS. 



AFTER-THOUGHTS ok the Glorified Christ— Small 
Things compared to Greater— Looking Back- 
ward — A Golden Thread of Encouragement — Duty 
and Destiny Linking Hands — A Mechanical Cer- 
tainty, and what it suggests—The Trick oe an 
Ancient General — An Augur we can trust — Battle- 
fields that are Sacred — The Greatest Conflicts 
of History — Christ's Triumph the Pledge and 
Model of Ours— The "Big I" and "Little You" Peo- 
ple — When the "Big I" is Proper — Discriminating 
Testimony of a Dying Minister — The Scene when 
the King comes in— Looking Forward — Pictures of 
Heaven by an Eye-witness — Significance of Some 
Striking Metaphors— The Glory which excelleth— 
Thoughts which should thrill us— After Crosses, 
the Crown — Things Worth Remembering — At Life's 
Threshold again— The Divine Visitor ; How to treat 
Him— Last Words. 
206 



VIII. 

THE VICTORY. 




UST as, when a letter has been fin- 
ished, we sometimes add a post- 
script to it, or as occasionally, in 
leaving home, a man will turn 
back to give to those in charge some 
final instructions, so our Divine Lord, after he 
had left the earth, added a postscript to what 
the four evangelists had written, and stooped 
down from his throne in glory to address a few 
words of final instruction to those into whose 
hands the interests of his cause had been com- 
mitted. 

Since the enactments of Calvary about ninety 
years had elapsed. All the apostles, with a 
single exception, had departed long before this 

to their rest in the skies. The sole survivor 

207 



208 FORWARD MARCH. 

of that immortal band was the beloved John. 

To him, while undergoing banishment in the 

After - thoughts isle of Patmos, came a vision of 

of the Glorified 

Christ. which a record is afforded in the 

book of Revelation. It had occurred to the 
Savior that his Church needed some additional 
words both of admonition and encouragement. 
From his seat of supreme observation in the 
heavens he had discerned in his Church a ten- 
dency toward error, and the danger even of final 
apostasy; and the time having come to call at- 
tention to these things, and to seek to incite his 
followers to unswerving perseverance, he appro- 
priately chooses as the medium of this commu- 
nication that disciple whom he so fondly loved, 
whose genius had been kindled, and whose lips 
had been moved to eloquence under a divine in- 
spiration on so many former occasions, and who, 
it would seem, had been kept on earth long after 
the allotted period expressly for this purpose. 

From these last words of Christ is our last 
message to these young people selected. Our 
purpose is to sound in your ears a note of vic- 
tory ; and this, obviously, was the chief purpose 
of the Master in the vision with which John 



THE VICTORY. 209 

was favored. In the first three chapters mes- 
sages are addressed to the seven Churches of 
Asia. Seven messages there are — all different 
in most respects, and yet, in one particular, all 
practically alike ; for each sets forth the possi- 
bility of final triumph, and each concludes with 
a stirring exhortation to those addressed to see 
to it that that which is thus held to be possible 
shall become in their experience a certain and 
glorious reality. 

If, too, we might be allowed for a moment to 
compare small things with those infinitely 
greater, it might not be inappro- smaii Things 

Compared to 

priate to remind you that the same Greater, 
peculiarity has marked the seven messages in- 
corporated thus far into this book. They have 
differed from one another in most regards; they 
have been classed under different topics, and 
have emphasized different phases of life's war- 
fare ; and yet, in one particular, they have been 
precisely alike — that, too, being the same par- 
ticular in which these messages to the Churches 
of Asia bore so striking a resemblance to one 
another; for we have failed in no message to 

hold out before you the prospect of final triumph, 

18 



2IO FORWARD MARCH. 

and have concluded no message without ex- 
horting you, in the strongest language we could 
command, to the only course — that of fidelity to 
God — which could possibly lead to final tri- 
umph. That, however, which in former mes- 
sages has been merely incidental, becomes now 
our principal and all-absorbing theme. 

First, we urged you to enlist for life's battle 
by being converted, reminding you that unless 

Looking Back- this WaS d ° ne Y°U WOUld fight, of 

necessity, a losing battle in Satan's 
army; but that, enlisting under the Savior, and 
continuing to serve him, you could not fail to 
fight a winning battle. Then we spoke of the 
flag you ought to follow — a flag lifted up in the 
name of God; a flag, indeed, which God himself 
lifted up, centuries ago, among the hills of Ju- 
dea — the blood-stained banner of the cross ; an 
ensign, we assured you, which had been an un- 
failing guaranty of triumph to faithful ones 
since first its crimson folds opened to the sun- 
shine and flapped defiance to the winds of op- 
position. 

Then we admonished you of the foes you 
have to fight. Numerous, crafty, powerful, dia- 



THE VICTORY. 211 

bolic, ever-present, and ever-pressing, we de- 
scribed these to be, as they unquestionably are ; 
yet, far from leaving you in despair before these 
foes, we did our best to leave you with the feel- 
ing that sharp conflict conduced to heroism' and 
nobility of character — that such a situation is 
precisely what is best for us, and that the harder 
the battle, the greater would be the recompense 
and glory of those who are so fortunate as to 
win it. Then we reminded you of the allies 
who are pledged to your help — the angels, the 
Church, the good people about you, and, better 
than all, God over you and Christ within you; 
the conclusion we reached being that they who 
are with you are many more and much greater 
than those who are against you, and that there- 
fore, if you were only faithful, you could not fail 
to be successful. 

Then we presented Christ as your Captain — 
another topic which enabled us to affirm the 
certainty of your final triumph, a Golden Thread 

of Encourage- 
Tlien we described the weapons ment. 

of your warfare, which, though not carnal, are 

mighty, through God, to the pulling down of 

strongholds, and which, properly used, would 



2 1 2 FORWARD MARCH. 

enable you, as we emphatically showed, to 
quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. Then, 
in the chapter immediately preceding the pres- 
ent one, we sketched for you a picture of the 
qualities of a good soldier, declaring these to 
consist mainly in moral hardihood, obedience, 
courage, and perseverance — qualities which we 
then declared, and do now again declare, seldom 
fail to insure success in even the temporalities 
of life, and never fail to make us successful in 
the moral and spiritual phases of life's battle. 

Thus the pleasing idea of final victory has 
been under treatment in one way or another 
constantly. Every topic has had in it a note of 
victory, and every appeal has been really a pre- 
sage of victory. Now, however, that you may 
be divested entirely of fear, and may advance to 
life's battle with a confidence that shall have no 
doubt whatever in it, we bring you in this last 
message a distinct promise of victory, and what 
is more, a glowing picture of the glory which 
will follow victory, this promise emanating from 
the lips, and this picture being drawn by the 
hand of our Divine Lord himself, whose soul- 
inspiring words are, "To him that overcometh 



THE VICTORY. 213 

will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even 
as I also overcame, and am set down with my 
Father in his throne." 

Do not forget, my young friends, that in this 
battle your duty and your destiny alike are to 
overcome. It is no experiment you Duty and Des- 

tiny Linking 

are trying. Upon the divine side Hands. 
of our lives there is no uncertainty, not the 
shadow of a doubt, as to the final result. The 
dubious clouds which presage failure come into 
view only when we look at the human side. 
No man was ever lost because God could not 
save him; no man was ever defeated by Satan 
through either a defect in his armor, or a failure 
of any of his weapons, or a scarcity of heavenly 
supplies ; but every man who is defeated in this 
strife falls a victim to his own perversity ; and 
every one who is lost meets this awful fate for 
the simple reason that he would not come to 
Christ for life in the first instance, or else did not 
come to him afterwards for the grace needed in 
the evil days of temptation. 

We are placed in this world expressly that 
we may overcome it. It is God's purpose that 
we shall overcome it, and all his illimitable 



214 FOR WARD MARCH. 

resources are pledged to our help for this end. 
It is a familiar saying that everything in the 
heavens is for the sole benefit of the earth. 
Probably this is not true in its fullest sense. The 
planets which give us light, and whose powers 
of attraction keep our earth moving within its 
orbit, give light, we may well suppose, to the 
inhabitants of other worlds. Be this as it may, 
however, that everything in God is for the ben- 
efit of the earth, and that all the resources of 
infinite grace laid up in the heaven of heavens, 
are at the command of the inhabitants of the 
earth for their personal salvation — of this no 
believer in the Bible can have the slightest 
doubt ; and this fact is what we have in mind 
in affirming so positively that it is possible 
for us to be victors in the battle of life, and 
that our duty and our destiny alike are to 
overcome. 

These young people all know what a suction- 
pump is. When this device first came into use, 
a Mechanical a mechanical expert, who had 

Certainty, and 

what it suggests, great faith in it, was questioned 
about it by the owner of a boat, who doubted 
its efficacy. ''Suppose," said this doubter, 



THE VICTORY. 215 

u suppose the appliances all perfect and all in 
place, and yet suppose the pump to not bring 
up water, what should you say in that case ?" 
"I should say," said the expert, "that some- 
thing was wrong with the pump." " But sup- 
pose," the man continued, "suppose nothing 
was wrong, and still water did not come — what 
should you do then?" "Why, then," said the 
man, with an emphasis of triumph, " I should 
go on deck and see if the river had not run dry." 
And so, in any alleged case of a faithful Chris- 
tian failing in any time of need to obtain a suf- 
ficiency of divine help, should we want to know 
if the river of salvation had not run dry; and 
until you could prove to us that God had ceased 
to be God, or had forgotten to be good, we should 
be compelled to maintain that that man's de- 
feat was attributable, not to a lack of grace, but 
to some defect in the appliances, to some failure 
on his own part to communicate properly with 
the inexhaustible source of grace. 

And being destined to victory in advance, 
as we assuredly are, both by the divine nature 
and the divine promises, what an advantage do 
we possess in this fact ! To men fighting an 



2l6 FORWARD MARCH. 

ordinary battle such an assurance would count 
so favorably as to be almost sufficient in itself 
to win the battle. 

Better this, in ordinary warfare, than either 

good weapons or impregnable armor ; better than 

The Trick of an overwhelming numbers. How very 

Ancient General. desirabk ^ fej we may fe^ 

from that ancient general, who, in consulting 
an augury, practiced a trick upon his soldiers. 
Upon his own hand he wrote the word vic- 
tory; then, snatching from the priest the liver 
of the bird he had dissected, and pressing it 
upon his palm to receive the imprint he had 
prepared, he held it up before his men, to whom 
the word victory meant, of course, that the gods 
foretold their success in the conflict upon which 
they were entering, the result being that these 
men displayed prodigies of valor which without 
such a stimulus would have been impossible. 
Who does not recall, moreover, the vision of 
Constantine, that shining cross which seemed to 
appear in the heavens, with the motto girdling 
it, in letters of flame, " In hoc signo vinces" (by 
this sign conquer) ; and who, that remembers 
the incident, needs to be reminded of the mar- 



THE VICTORY. 217 

velous influence of that vision upon Constan- 
tine's army? 

But think of this, my young friends. If a 
promise of victory based upon a trick could 
spur those pagan hosts to triumph, An Augur we 
and if the vision of Constantine, can Trust - 
which was probably, at best, only the pleasing 
fancy of a devout and over-excited brain, meant 
so much to him — if these things could produce 
such prodigies of valor, and could enable those 
believing in them to win such glorious vic- 
tories, what influence for good should not these 
words of Christ produce? for that which these 
offer is no trick of either a faithless priest or a 
false commander ; nor is it any mere sign of 
triumph which has come to us through a dream, 
or has been evolved from an excited fancy ; but 
that which is here offered to all these young 
people is an assurance of triumph from the lips 
of God himself — an utterance, in fact, which 
links your triumph to that of your Savior, and 
makes it just as certain that you will overcome, 
the necessary means being used, as that he 
overcame. 

This latter thought let us emphasize a little. 
19 



2 1 8 FOR WARD MARCH. 

Let us take you for a moment to some of the 

battle-fields trodden and hallowed by the bloody 

Battie-fieids ^ ut victorious footsteps of the Son 

which are Sacred. q£ Qo ^ That j^-^ Qf ^ ^ 

derness let us call up, the opening battle, of 
Christ's ministry, in which the arch enemy laid 
siege to his intended victim from every point of 
vantage, and tested his armor at every joint and 
crevice ; with no more effect, however, than when 
the mad waves of old ocean dash themselves to 
pieces against the rock-bound coast. Think, 
too, how he walked through this world's corrup- 
tions, stooping to the foulest, that he might lift 
them up, and not disdaining to eat with sinners ; 
yet still, according to the testimony of both 
friends and enemies, being without sin himself, 
and a total stranger to even the semblance of 
guile. Remember, too, his heartless treatment 
by those from whom he had deserved only grat- 
itude and kindness — how he was crossed and 
thwarted in the good he tried to do, and cursed 
and reviled for the kind words he spoke, and 
how still, through it all, he gave blessings for 
curses, and continued, to the end, to overcome 
evil with good ! 



THE VICTORY. 2IO, 

Then, in the battle of the garden behold 
him, — weak nature shrinking from the terrible 
ordeal, and vet, his indomitable The Greatest 

Conflicts of His- 

spirit forcing nature to do its bid- tory. 
ding — compelling the reluctant hand to press 
against lips which would fain have been ex- 
cused from drinking it, the bitterest cup which 
human wickedness or divine justice ever com- 
pounded. And then see him in the last battle, 
in Calvary's stupendous struggle, that awful 
contest from which, as though he might be fear- 
ful of the result, the sun hid his face, and in 
sight of which Old Nature, who ne'er had looked 
upon the like before, sobbed and trembled until 
her rocky bosom burst open in an earthquake. 
Behold him there, my young friends, — the flesh 
weaker than ever, and yet the spirit stronger 
than ever ; in such agony that he begs for a 
drink to quench the burning thirst his suffer- 
ings have produced, and yet in such triumph 
that he invokes forgiveness in behalf of those 
who are slaying him ; his great heart ready to 
break from the pressure of woe it is undergoing, 
and yet, the burden steadily, heroically, and tri- 
umphantly borne — the whole of it, even to the 



220 FORWARD MARCH. 

last huge weight which fell upon him when his 
father's face was hidden — the whole of this bur- 
den steadily, heroically, unflinchingly borne, 
until at last he confounds the powers of hell, 
and thrills every angel's heart with rapture, and 
reassures the frightened king of day, and calms 
the tremors of the shaking earth, by that final 
exclamation of triumph, "It is finished!" 

Behold your Savior, my young friends, under 

these circumstances, in all the full glory of a 

Christ's Triumph triumph which has been the as- 

the Pledge and 

Model of ours. tonishment of the world ever since 
it was won ; and then, while your hearts still 
throb with the ecstasy of that triumph, and the 
tears fall, as they surely must, in grateful recog- 
nition of the blessed fact that Christ did all this 
and bore all this out of sheer love for poor sin- 
ners, let us remind you of still another blessed 
fact, which is, that surely as he overcame, may 
you overcome, and that, furthermore, your tri- 
umph may be as complete, as enduring, as 
grand, and as glorious as was his ; and we tell 
you this, bear in mind, upon the highest pos-, 
sible authority — no less than Christ's own words, 
and no other than his very latest words, which 



THE VICTORY. 221 

distinctly suggest, as do many other passages of 
Scripture, that Christ's victory is not only a sure 
guaranty of ours, but is also the shining pattern 
according to which, assuming that we are faith- 
ful, our victory is to be modeled. 

It is worthy of note, too, that, according to 
the same passage, the battle of life is to be car- 
ried to a triumphant conclusion under Christ's 
personal supervision. 

Considering who is speaking, how refreshing 
it is to find the personal pronouns scattered so 
profusely through this passage ! The »« Big i ■• 

and "Little You" 

For a speaker to obtrude his own People, 
personality upon an audience is, usually, quite 
offensive. We do not like the "big I" and 
" little you" people, as a general thing. When, 
however, it is Christ who is speaking, and when 
the theme upon which he expatiates is human 
salvation, this form of expression is just the 
thing; nothing else would suffice; and that 
which disgusts us in other cases, in this case 
challenges our gratitude and thrills our souls. 

That commander who ordered his men to 
advance, and said, as he bade them go, " Recol- 
lect that I am with you " — we are rather inclined 



222 FORWARD MARCH. 

to smile at him ; though his men did not, for to 
have with them in the battle such a general as 
he was, meant a great deal to those who knew 
him. So, likewise, are we inclined to see only 
egotism in the memorable words uttered on 
a certain occasion by Sir Philip Sidney. He 
was directing a small body of men in an as- 
sault upon a much larger one. " Now," said 
he 1 to his soldiers, " let every man engage one 
other man, and I will take care of the rest;" 
and, read in cold blood, the promise seems to 
savor of vanity. Possibly, though, it was proper 
enough under the circumstances which called it 
forth; certainly it had a good effect. 

But O, think of the effect when our Com- 
mander utters such words! No smile of con- 
whenthe "Big tempt in that case, but streaming 
i" is Proper. tears of ^Jgteful adoration. No 

thought of egotism, but the feeling welling up 
within us that he who thus expresses himself 
has a right to speak in such language. And is 
it not an unquestionable fact that our Com- 
mander has thus spoken, telling us to advance to 
the conflict, and then immediately adding, " Lo 
I am with you — always with you;" thrusting 



THE VICTORY. 223 

us into fierce battle, and assuring us, as he does 
so, that if we but do our part, he will take care 
of all the rest ? 

Notice, too, how he emphasizes this fact in 
the passage we are considering. To humanity 
he refers but once, to himself five times. Ah! 
it is Christ who has this matter in hand. He it 
is through whom you are to overcome. He it is 
who shall personally attend both to your triumph, 
and to the bestow ment of the glory which is to 
follow that triumph, his promise being, " To 
him that overcometh will I grant to sit with 
me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and 
am set down with my Father in his throne." 

It is worth noting, moreover, that the final 
reward of the successful Christian soldier is de- 
scribed in this passage as a grant Discriminating 

Testimony of a 

something bestowed, not in the Dying Minister, 
form of a reward, but as a free gift. And what 
could harmonize more perfectly with the facts? 
Who ever merited, or ever could merit, the un- 
speakable dignity of sitting down with the 
blessed Christ in his throne? Ah! that good 
man, Thomas Hooker, was right. Stretched 
upon his death-bed, and nearing the end of 



224 FORWARD MARCH. 

a life spent in devoted service to God and 
humanity, some friend visiting him remarked, 
in his hearing, that he was going now to receive 
the reward of his labors ; upon which, however, 
the good man, it is said, roused himself to ob- 
serve, as his streaming eyes turned gratefully 
toward heaven: " You are mistaken; I am going 
only to receive mercy." And he was right ; for 
whilst it is true that we can enter heaven only 
when, by hard and successful fighting, we have 
won our entrance, we still do not by any means 
obtain this entrance because we have won it; 
we obtain it solely through the merits of Christ. 
Really, we do not win heaven in any sense, 
but Christ wins it for us. So that, as that elo- 
The scene when quent Scottish preacher has so 

the King Comes 

in. forcibly said, when the King of that 

fairest of all lands shall stand up among the 
nobles of his kingdom and demand by what 
power they gained their possessions, the response 
will not be as, when one of England's Kings 
asked this question of his nobles, and when im- 
mediately a hundred swords were unsheathed, 
and all present, with one voice, replied, "We 
won our lands by these, and by these are we 



THE VICTORY. 22 5 

determined to hold them ;" but the response, 
when the question shall be asked in heaven, 
"Who are these, and whence came they?" will 
be, " These are they which came out of great 
tribulation, and have washed their robes in the 
blood of the Lamb ; therefore are they before 
the throne." Not by the blood of battle, but 
by the blood of Christ ; their inheritance gained 
not by their own swords, but by the sword of the 
Spirit, and their united and unceasing acclama- 
tion being, in consequence, " Not unto us, not 
unto us, O Lord, but unto thy name be all the 
glory, for thy mercy and thy truth's sake." 

It is perfectly in order to speak of heaven, 
because the message we have brought you from 
the lips of Christ speaks of it. To Lo0 king For- 
be sure, the name of this place is ward ' 
not mentioned; but what else can be thought 
of when the promise is given by Christ that we 
shall sit down with him in his throne? Allow 
us therefore, under Christly sanction and guid- 
ance, to transport you for a time away from 
the smoke and sweat and blood of the stern 
battle-fields, where you are now contending 
with mighty and desperate foes, to the place 



226 



FORWARD MARCH. 



of peace, of triumph, of coronation, and of eter- 
nal glory. 

Ah ! how often does the soldier dream at night 
that he is at home! How often does the dew, 

If. 




The Soldier at Home. 

falling on his upturned cheek, seem to him as 
the dewy kisses of that sweet wife, and the 
rough blanket he hugs to his shivering form 



THE VICTORY. 227 

like the tender embrace of those darling chil- 
dren! He is still upon the battle-field, realty, 
and will waken again, erelong, to the stern re- 
alities of conflict ; but in his thoughts is he 
sharing, for a little time, in the sweet joys of 
home. The cruel war is over, and he has his 
reward in children's kisses, in a fond wife's en- 
dearments, in the respect of neighbors, and in the 
gratitude of his country. Similarly would we 
have these young people imagine for a few mo- 
ments that the warfare of life is ended, and that, 
amid the ecstasies of that better home in the 
skies, they are enjoying at last the far more ex- 
ceeding and eternal reward which the King of 
heaven is preparing for his soldiers. 

How entirely proper it is to encourage our- 
selves in life's battle by thinking frequently of 
what awaits us at the end, let Christ bear wit- 
ness to us in these messages to the Churches of 
Asia. There are seven of these messages, and 
each concludes by sketching for the Christian a 
rough outline of what his final glory will be. 
Each lays upon us the obligation to over- 
come, and each tells us what will follow such a 
triumph. 



228 



FORWARD MARCH. 



In the first message Christ says, "To him 

that overcometh will I give to eat of the fruit 

pictures of of the tree of life ," that which is 

Heaven by an Eye- 
witness, here promised being a blissful im- 
mortality, — Paradise regained ; a restoration to 
our souls of the innocence and happiness en- 
joyed by our first parents while they reposed in 

the shade and par- 
took of the fruit of 
the life-giving trees 
of the first Eden. In 
the next message the 
promise is that he 
that overcometh shall 
not be hurt of the 
second death ; an- 
other promise of ever- 
lasting and ever-blessed life; for the second 
death means the punishment of perdition, and, 
of course, those unhurt of this will escape per- 
dition, and attain to a destiny directly opposite 
thereto. The promise of the next message is 
that he that overcometh shall eat of the hidden 
manna. A portion of manna was preserved in 
the ark, and the ark, with all its sacred contents, 




The Ark. 



THE VICTORY. 229 

had been lost. But the triumphant soldier of 
the cross is promised the felicity of recovering 
this inestimable treasure. That which has been 
hidden is to be brought out for his entertain- 
ment, the idea being that in our eternal fellow- 
ship with Christ we shall enjoy, in a spiritual 
sense, all that was symbolized, not only by the 
manna, but by the other contents of the ark, 
and, in fact, all that was symbolized in the en- 
tire Mosaic economy. We are also, this promise 
says, to receive a white stone; this in token of 
our acquittal at God's judgment bar, and in al- 
lusion, doubtless, to the fact that in ancient 
times stones were cast by judges to announce 
their verdict, a black one meaning guilty, and 
the white stone symbolizing innocence and con- 
sequent triumph. 

In the next message the promise is, " He 
that overcometh, to him will I give power over 
the nations;" meaning, doubtless, significance of 

Some Striking 

that he shall share in Christ's Metaphors. 
power over the nations when all the nations 
shall have been brought into submission to him. 
"And I will give him the morning star," con- 
tinues the Savior, a glory second only to his 



230 FOR WARD MARCH. 

own glory, as the radiance of that bright lu- 
minary which heralds the day is exceeded only 
by the clear light which the day itself ushers in ; 
an idea which sustains the sublime fancy in- 
dulged, in one of his nights of eloquence, by 
Bishop Ames, when he pictured the couquering 
saint entering the gates of Paradise, and im- 
agined that he heard God saying to the most 
exalted of spiritual intelligences: "Stand back, 
Gabriel ; stand back, Michael ; stand back, all ye 
angelic hosts, and make room for one who must 
be next only to myself." 

The promise immediately following speaks 
for itself. It needs no explanation. " He that 
overcometh the same shall be clothed in white 
raiment; and I will not blot out his name out 
of the book of life ; but I will confess his name 
before my father and before his angels." Then, 
to the Church at Philadelphia he says: " Him 
that overcometh will I make a pillar in the 
temple of my God, and he shall go no more out;" 
an allusion, probably, to the great pillars — one 
representing strength and the other beauty — 
which adorned the temple of King Solomon. 
"And I will write upon him," he continues, "the 



THE VICTORY. 231 

name of my God;" this to indicate his exalted 
rank; "and the name of the city of my God, 
New Jerusalem;" making his appearance so 
glorious that none shall fail to recognize him as 
a citizen of the place of glory. "And," he 
adds — this, no doubt, being infinitely better 
than anything else promised, though what it 
means we shall not presume to speculate upon — 
"and I will write upon him my new name." 

Such, briefly sketched, are six of Christ's 
messages, six of the pictures he draws with the 
object^ of setting forth the glory TheGlorywhich 
which awaits the triumphant Chris- Excelleth - 
tian soldier; and it would almost seem as though, 
in the effort to do justice to this theme, lan- 
guage had been beggared and the choicest gems 
in the whole realm of metaphor pressed into 
service. And still, in this seventh message, 
does he promise us something further, and 
something grander as well; for if it means so 
much to have the tree of life, and the white 
stone, and the hidden manna, and the stainless 
garments, and the morning star, and the new 
name — if these things, these representations of 
heaven, image to us so much that is desirable 



232 FORWARD MARCH. 

and glorious, then what must it mean, or, rather, 
what must it not mean, of all the dignities pos- 
sible or conceivable, to be permitted to sit down 



I,ooking Forward. 

with Christ in his throne, even as he is set 
down with his Father in his throne ! 

Ask us not to describe what this means, for 



THE VICTORY. 233 

in presence of such ineffable glories human 
thought is paralyzed, and human language awed 
into silence. If you could tell us what Christ's 
throne is, we could then tell you what your 
throne will be in the event of your being faith- 
ful to Christ. If you should picture out the 
strength, the majesty, the scope, the durability, 
the grace, and all the glory appertaining to his 
dominion when it shall be complete in the end 
of time, we could then draw a picture of the 
sovereignty, the dominion, and the glory to 
which the faithful Christian will finally be ex- 
alted ; for we should borrow the outlines of the 
second picture from those given in the first, and 
should have abundant warrant in Scripture for 
so doing. Not that our sovereignty will be equal 
to that of Christ ; but it will be like his ; it will, 
in fact, according to Christ's own teaching, be 
a part of his. 

Such is our final destiny. O, think of it ; 
think of it till your cold hearts get warm ; think 
of it till your failing strength shall Thoughts which 
wax into renewed vigor ; think of Should Thrin us ' 
it till your feeble courage shall be nerved to 
fresh exertion, and until all thought of hardship 



234 FORWARD MARCH. 

and all liability to discouragement shall be cast 
behind you forever; think of it till your eyes 
shall glisten with tears of gratitude, and until, 
as you shall seem in blissful anticipation to be 
taking part in those august ceremonies, your lips 
shall open to exclaim in astonishment and 
in trembling ecstasy, 

How can it be, thou Heavenly King, 
That thou should'st us to glory bring; 
Make slaves the partners of thy throne, 
Decked with a never-fading crown? 

Hence our hearts melt ; our eyes o'erfiow ; 
Our words are lost ; nor will we know, 
Nor will we speak of aught beside — 
My L/ord, my love was crucified. 

As yet, however, we are not there. Not 
upon the throne yet, but still upon the battle- 
After crosses, field - Ours not the palm of tri- 
the crown. umph at present, but the conse- 

crated cross. Yes, crosses here; but shall we 
not cheerfully bear them in view of what is to 
follow? Who can help thinking of that dear 
little child, the daughter of a woman who was 
suffering imprisonment because she was a Chris- 
tian, and of the happy thought which led her to 
cut out a lot of small paper crosses, and pin 



THE VICTORY. 



235 



them here and there upon mamma's dress, and 
then make a great big crown, and put that above 
the crosses, on mamma's head? A happy 
thought it was, indeed, and a heavenly child 
must she have been who conceived it; for there, 
precisely, is the true view of life, the identical view 
which Christ 
holds out to us ; 
our destiny here 
being crosses; 
then, however, 
after the crosses, 
above the crosses, 
and entirely ob- 
scuring by its sur- 
passing glory all 
trace of the crosses, a great crown of sovereignty 
and eternal dominion. 

So, let us be cheered, let us be stimulated ; 
remembering this, that our destiny is linked in- 
dissolubly to that of Christ; that Things Worth 
as regards this world, it is not so Rememberin e- 
much what we can do as w T hat he can do ; and 
that, as regards the next world, it is beyond a 
question that if we are one with him in suffering, 




236 FORWARD MARCH. 

and one with him in triumph, we can not fail 
of being one with him in glory ; everything thus, 
as to both worlds, depending upon our getting 
near to him, and still, with each succeeding day, 
getting a little nearer; our experience in this 
respect patterned after that of the venerable man 
who said he could not tell exactly why he ex- 
pected to get to heaven, only from this fact, that 
as he neared the end he seemed all the time to 
be getting a little nearer to Jesus ; the result 
being, if this shall indeed become our experi- 
ence, that when the end is reached, we are cer- 
tain to be with Jesus — are certain to sit down 
with him in his throne ; and seeing him as he 
is, and being so closely identified with him, are 
certain also to be like him ; this latter constituting 
the one fact with reference to our destiny which 
shines out in the firmament of Scripture more 
distinctly than any other, and which is more 
precious than any other; for, as the beloved 
John says, " It doth not yet appear what we 
shall be; but we know that when he shall ap- 
pear, we shall be like him, for we shall see 
him as he is." 



THE VICTORY. 237 

And now, having taken you forward to the 
end of life's battle, we shall close by taking you 
backward to its momentous begin- At Life , s Thresh . 
ning. Observe, too, how closely old Again - 
these extreme points of existence are connected 
with each other. What a striking instance of 
this have we in that message of Christ upon 
which the present chapter is based ; and how 
well does this striking fact serve our purpose in 
this final appeal! That which we desire you 
now to notice is, that in the verse immediately 
preceding the one in which sovereignty and do- 
minion are promised to those who shall over- 
come in this battle of life, the blessed Christ, 
who gives us that promise, presents himself as a 
suppliant, begging at our hands the favor of be- 
ing allowed to save us. "Behold," he says, "I 
stand at the door and knock." At what door? 
we instantly inquire. Tell us, O tell us, with- 
out delay, at what door does he knock? 

How can any of us help asking this question, 

or be other than deeply anxious The Divine vis- 
itor — How to Treat 

about the response it shall evoke? Him. 
Suppose it were announced to you that Prince 
Bismarck, retired from office recently amid the 



238 FORWARD MARCH. 

tears of a grateful nation, was in your city, and 
was knocking somewhere for admittance and 
recognition. Who of us, in that case, would not 
at once say: "Where is he? Where is this dis- 
tinguished man? Let us see him, let us know 
him, and let us give him a welcome." Need I 
remind you, however, that there is really in your 
midst a personage of far greater distinction than 
the greatest statesman of Europe? O, it is the 
Savior, the Prince of Peace, the Lord of lords, 
the King of kings. He it is who has honored 
with a visit, not one city alone, but every city; 
and the door at which, in all the majesty of his 
Godhead and in all the tenderness of his hu- 
manity, he is knocking for admittance, is the 
door of every human heart. 

O, wonderful condescension, and wonderful, 
most wonderful, the results depending upon 
your action in the premises ! Open your door 
to his steps, and he will open to you the door 
of heaven. Admit him here, and he will admit 
you there. And now, with an awful sense of the 
stupendous issues involved, we pause to ask, 
Who will do this — who will let this dear Savior 
come in? 



THE VICTORY. 239 

Heaven grant that you may all admit him ; 
remembering, my young friends, as we have re- 
peatedly reminded you already, Last words, 
that to end right you must begin right; that to 
fight under Christ's banner you must enlist in 
his cause; and that the only possible way to se- 
cure for yourselves a final seat upon his throne, 
is to give him a seat upon your throne — the 
throne of your pure and undivided affections — 
saying to him, as you still feel the pressure of 
his gentle hand upon your sensitive natures, and 
are moved and thrilled by the pleading and 
melting tones of that tenderest voice which ever 
spoke to mortals : 

God calling yet! Shall I not hear? 
Earth's pleasures shall I still hold dear ? 
Shall life's swift passing years all fly, 
And still my soul in slumber lie ? 

God calling yet ! And shall he knock, 
And I my heart the closer lock ? 
He still is waiting to receive, 
And shall I dare his Spirit grieve ? 

God calling yet ! I can not stay, 

My life I yield without delay ; 

Vain world, farewell ; from thee I part ; 

The voice of God hath reached my heart. 




3 



A SERIES of 

Bri^b, Helpful, 
Soulful Ficbioi), 
for bl)e Old ar>d 
bl>e Your>6. 



^Ilfi^ 



ANNIE S. SWAN. 



All that is false they unmask; all thai is true they enforce. 

THG ANNIG SWAN SERIES. 



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CRANSTON & 8T0WE, Cincinnati. Chicago, St. Louis. 
HUNT & EATON, New v rk 



Another Book by 



the Same Author, 



life'0 (Mt)£tt listening: 

ITS pi^omiSES fl\lb ITS p^RHS. 



This also is a book for young people. It is elegantly 
bound in cloth, has 339 pages, and is sold for $1.00. The first 
four chapters are addressed to young men, treating of the 
company they should keep, the books they should read, the 
dangers to which they are exposed, and the opportunities 
which are before them. Then follows an ample chapter, con- 
taining advice of a most interesting and valuable 'character to 
young women. Then young people of both sexes are ad- 
dressed. This part of the book embraces six chapters, and 
covers all the various departments of youthful life. In enter- 
taining and instructive counsels from one who is in hearty 
sympathy with them, young people are told, first, what their 
deportment at home should be. Then school-life is treated. 
Next, the choosing of a vocation is considered ; and then fol- 
low chapters upon such living issues as " Young People and 
their Amusements," " Young People in Society," and " Young 
People and the Church." This book is now in its third edi- 
tion. An eminent artist, referring to the title, " Life's Golden 
Morning," says the book is " a golden book in every respect." 

From the large number of commendations which this book 
has elicited, the following are taken as specimens : 

The Rev. Henry Tuckley is the author of a book which ought to go 
into every Sunday-school library in the land, and into every other library 
which is to be read by young people. It is entitled " life's Golden Morn 
ing: Its Promises and Its Perils." The book is put up in elegant style, 
and is written in language as attractive as it is instructive. Every 
young person should read it, for none can read it without profit. The 
title is beautiful, but no more so than the thoughts with which the book 
abounds. The author shows that he is in sympathy with young people. 
He does not stand apart from them and indulge cold and cynical criti- 



cism, but stands among' them and gives counsel, which is as much char- 
acterized by love as by good sense.— Editorial of the late Rev. J. H. Bay- 
liss, D. D . in Western Christian Advocate. 

Much has already been said of the matter of the work in the city de- 
partment of the Globe- Republic, but it appears in even better form in the 
book than it was in when delivered from the pulpit. Mr. Tuckley is nor 
only an able and most interesting preacher, but he is a gentleman of fine, 
ample culture, and marked literary ability. Moreover, his productions 
(as in this instance) abound in sound, sensible, and wholesome sugges- 
tions. " Life's Golden Morning " is a book prepared especially for young 
people, but it will prove of value to that larger class embracing all who 
are interested in young people.— Editorial in Springfield {O.) Globe- Re- 
public. 

This book ought to be in the hands of every young person in the 
land. It is not a sensational book, but plain and practical, terse in ex- 
pression, sententious in style, replete in happy and forcible illustration : 
does not deal in the abstract, but in the applicate ; addresses the under- 
standing of the young, presents a kaleidoscopic view of young life, and 
appeals to the higher motives of human nature in its most plastic period, 
and always urges the claims of Christ as " the way, the truth, and the 
life," for safety, success happiness and right. Give the book to your 
boys and girls by all means.-A'cz/. IV. J. Finley. D. D.. in Springfield 
Globe-Republic. 

" Life's Golden Morning " is a book eminently fitted to furnish inspi- 
ration and help to all who will hear and heed its wise counsels. Mr. 
Tuckley speaks, out of the fullness of an earnest pastor's heart, plain 
and kindl} r words to the young people of his flock, setting before them, 
in a style both instructive and pleasing, the perils and possibilities of 
their lives. This volume deserves, and it is hoped will have, a multitude 
of youthful readers.— Rev. C. H. Payne, D. D , LL. D., Cot. Sec'y Boaid 
of Education of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 

I have read enough in " Life's Golden Morning " to be able to pro 
nounce it splendid. Indeed, I could have ventured to say as much with- 
out reading a single page, knowing the author as well as I do. I wish 
the book couid find its way to the hand brain, and heart of every young 
person in the land. It will certainly be a favorite volume in Sunday- 
school libraries. — Rev. A. B Leonard, D. D.. Cor Secy Missionary Society 
of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 

The lectures are practical, forcible, and eloquent. The book is full of 
good things.— Rev. W N. Brodbeck, Pastor Tremont-St M. E. Church 
Boston, Mass. 



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